Not everything that lowers HDL is bad for you. If you change from a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet to a healthy low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, your HDL levels may stay the same or even decrease because there is less need for it. When you have less garbage, you need fewer garbage trucks to remove it, so your body may make less HDL.

Eating a stick of butter will raise HDL in those who are able to do so, but that does not mean that butter is good for your heart. It isn't.

There is often a simplistic view that HDL is good, so that anything that raises HDL is good for you, and anything that lowers it is bad for you. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Dean Ornish Quotes