Research
Macro partitioning
Western Diet is positively associated with Serum Total Cholesterol (TC) across all income levels, whereas its association with BMI weakens or reverses at high levels of Westernization.
A Western-style diet, characterized by high intake of animal products, sugars, and saturated fats, is strongly linked to high cholesterol. Even if your weight is stable, reducing these specific food groups can lower your cholesterol.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
TC was positively and significantly associated with Western diet in both 1980 and 2008... In 1980, BMI was associated with WD, with some flattening for men and reversal of association at approximately the 80th percentile for women.
Why this rating
Large-scale ecological study with robust statistical modeling.
Source
The Global Cardiovascular Risk Transition
Goodarz Danaei et al. · Circulation · 2013
DOI 10.1161/circulationaha.113.001470
cross_sectionalCited 249×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Urbanization is positively associated with higher Body Mass Index (BMI) across countries, independent of national income and Western diet, suggesting that urban living environments drive obesity through mechanisms like physical inactivity.Good
- Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) has decoupled from Body Mass Index (BMI) at the population level in high-income countries, whereas it remains positively correlated in low- and middle-income countries.Good
Related findings · Macro partitioning
- Total daily protein intake of 1.6 g/kg/day is sufficient for maximizing resistance training-induced muscle gains, with an upper confidence interval of 2.2 g/kg/day.Strong
- Resistance exercise training combined with sufficient dietary protein intake acts synergistically to maximize skeletal muscle hypertrophy, with protein intake saturating around 1.6 g/kg/day for general populations and potentially requiring 2.0-2.2 g/kg/day for resistance-trained individuals.Strong
- Trans fats should be completely eliminated from the diet, as they increase LDL cholesterol, decrease HDL cholesterol, and are directly associated with increased coronary risk.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →