What kind of oil do you use?

The problem is in the belief that LDL is bad cholesterol, that is a simplistic view and totally fictional. The body produces LDL to deliver cholesterol to all cells in the body and without LDL cholesterol we wouldn't be here. Try researching particle size of LDL and it's influence of CVD and the foods that are associated with these subfractions.

Trust me, I have a pretty good understanding of HDL/LDL and biochemistry in general. I don't think myself or the individuals cited in the article have that simplistic a view -- only the view that LDL levels that are TOO HIGH can be detrimental to CV health, which I believe most people in the field still agree with. That said, I'll be reviewing the most recent literature regarding this as well - if you're able to link me to any specific studies you have in mind, that would be awesome. (Also, I saw your post about the palm oil -> veg oil conversion in the tropics. Interesting.)

This isn't bad. If you have an questions let me know.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2014286/

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=187669

I won't have time to read these as thoroughly as I'd like until tomorrow, but I will (thank you for posting!). Here are, generally, the questions I would want answered to be convinced:

1. Which forms of LDL pose the greatest risk factors for CVD?
The articles above suggest small, dense LDL. My initial answer would've been oxidized LDL (but after skimming, I think at least one of the articles suggests the two go hand in hand?). We can agree on that for now.

From my research it appears that sdLDL are the most atherogenic, not in all studies, but most of them. It's the association of very low HDL and very high triglycerides that sdLDL are always predominant, this particular cluster is also the most prevalent in cardiovascular disease. Lipoproteins with the least amount of cholesterol in them are the small dense ones with most of the cargo being triglycerides and the larger more buoyant LDL actually have more cholesterol, but less trigs, weird but true. In other words the allotted space to hold cholesterol within a lipoprotein is made smaller because of the increased triglyceride content and therefore more overall LDL lipoproteins are needed for a given amount of cholesterol and the only way for the body to do that is increase the total amount of particles. For example 2 people could have the same LDL reading, one with 15,000 LDL particles and another with 900. This is called LDL-P (particle) if you want to do some research.

2. Okay, small LDL poses the biggest risk. Is large LDL still associated with risk?
Probably, yes. That's how it's taught at my university, at least. Most sources I've seen today only look at total LDL, so it's hard to know -- I'll look for a more definitive answer when I have the chance.

Answered in question 1

3. Are there behavioral modifications to selectively reduce small LDL levels? Depending on the answer to #2, would it be more worthwhile to focus on reducing total LDL?
You alluded to this when you said "foods associated with those subfractions," but I'm not sure which foods you mean. I saw a website implying that eliminating wheat products entirely is the solution, but that seems a little extreme and I'd prefer to have the data.

First let me say that generally speaking sdLDL do not occur in a vacuum, all by themselves. Generally they are accompanied by symptoms of hypertriglyceridemia, reduced HDL cholesterol levels, abdominal obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, diabetes and with a malfunction of the endothelial from chronic inflammation. Seems to represent a pretty big demographic in NA that again, could possibly be described as people that consume close to what is referred to as the SAD diet.

Exercise, weight reduction and preferably both will reduce sdLDL. Drugs I'm not to sure about mostly because I haven't done much research in that area simply because I prefer to address the problem as opposed to the symptom. Saying that I do know that statins have not reduced sdLDL from the many papers, and makes sense considering statins do not reduce mortality.

As far as foods that reduce sdLDL it's a little more complicated because if we increase HDL and reduce triglycerides sdLDL is reduced by default. We have to ask the question, which foods reduce HDL and increase triglycerides and again this in a vacuum may only be part of the solution but carbohydrates, specifically refined cereal grains and sugar do exactly that, especially if someone is consuming a high carbohydrate diet (60% +) again where refined carbs constitute a good percentage of those calories. This diet also decreases LDL-C and the reason it's been popular for the last 30 years, it reduces overall cholesterol, HDL and LDL. Which is a contradiction for the most part because lowering cholesterol levels reduces CVD, which begs the question; do we have any data that tells us the LDL levels of actual heart attach victims to draw from? It turns out we do. UCLA did a study of over 135,000 patients from over 500 hospitals in assciation with Get with the Guidelines program which is basically the National Cholesterol Education Program, and collected blood samples of actual heart attach victims from 2002 and 2006 and it turns out that over 75% had average to low LDL with over 50% under 100, and I forget but another 15% was recorded with LDL under 70. If elevated LDL is the main go to gorilla for cholesterol measuring and association with cardiovascular disease, where is the prevelance an association of high LDL and CVD.......That question always has me thinking. Now these same heart victims also have low HDL levels, I believe under 40 and only 2% of these same victims had LDL over 60, which is the current recommendation.

4. More specifically, what would be the benefit-cost ratio for selectively reducing small LDL vs total LDL? And when total LDL is reduced, is small LDL reduced proportionally?

If a person is diagnosed with MetS, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistant will have lower LDL, so it's kind of a paradox really......how low does LDL have to be in order to reduce and reverse these vascular events?

5. And finally, how do the oils discussed in this thread compare in their effect on each subfraction of LDL?

If someone is reducing their low fat diet with a higher one, basically meaning they're reduced their carbohydrate intake and increased both fat and protein, while at the same time reducing triglycerides. Again from my research it appears that saturated fat increase HDL the most of any other fat but it also can increase LDL but it also influences the particle size of those LDL making they larger and more buoyant. But all fat has this type of association. It's important that when doing research on saturated fat that there are no carbohydrates in the study simply because they influence the outcomes too much so they should be looked at individually, which I've tried to do.

Just my quick thoughts. I'm sure some of the answers are in the articles you posted and others - I just need more time to read in detail.

Also, it always surprises me how determined the people on these forums are to be right - the science is always changing and none of us have read all of it. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always right, even if I don't think I'm very far off on this one. Too few people are okay with reevaluating their ideas. (frutti, I think you'd disagree with me about anything since that keto discussion)