Re: raising-good-cholesterol-levels-reduces-heart-attack--st
Beware of banner headlines and remember that "Correlation does not imply causation" -- this study observed a correlation between incidence of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and HDL levels... the headline might just as well have said "reducing heart-attack/stroke raises good cholesterol".
What this means is that if there was some drug which artificially raised HDL it might not show the same reduction in risk of CVD -- that would have to be tested.
What this also might mean is that the same interventions (change of diet and physical activity for example) which are demonstrated in the body by an higher HDL level, those same interventions might be what has helped to reduce CVD... in which case the HDL level might serve as marker of overall health; in much the same way that a raised white cell count usually indicates infection -- without being the cause of the infection. By the same token if we tried a drug to lower the white cell count artificially you might end up worsening the infection, because the white cells are there for a reason.
