<i>Do you care if you have reduced your risk of CVD death, if risk of other deaths increase?</i><p>I might if I have a family history of heart disease. I might if I have confounding factors for CVD (like being on oral contraceptives). The point is, this is why people have doctors who went to medical school. Dr Google doesn't know about your particular situation.<p>Moreover, if I may channel badscience.net for a minute, I think the whole "science says don't eat butter! science says butter is okay!" ping pong reporting undermines public understanding of the scientific process. While this complaint is usually addressed at traditional media, we are in fact being complicit by submitting/upvoting these kind of stories, since we are essentially meta-publishing them.<p>I do actually agree with you about the fact that total mortality is the most appropriate indicator for people to take to heart, and I do agree that there is a lot of evidence that points to the fact that cholesterol levels are not as correlated with mortality as people who sell you statins will have you think. But that is beside my point.