Table 5.

Plasma cholesterol in the diet heart trials

	Experimental group			Control group
	Baseline (mg/dl)	Follow up (mg/dl)	Change (mg/dl)	Baseline (mg/dl)	Follow up (mg/dl)	Change (mg/dl)
RCOT [21]			−20			−3
ODHS [22]	296	244	−52	296	285	−11
NDHS [29]a	232	208	−24	229	224	−5
MRCT [23]	272	239	−33	273	269	−4
LAVAT [54]	233	190	−43	234	201	−33
FMHS [43, 57]b		231			270
SDHS [25]	281	250	−31	282	262	−20
HDAT [31]d	263	249	−14	267	267	0
MCS [26]	205	175	−30	204	203	−1
DART [27]	250	243	−7	250	253	+3
STARS [28]	278	239	−39	273	268	−5

^aThe values for NDHS come from a weighted average of the experimental and control groups respectively. ^bDue to the crossover design used in FMHS, only the values for total cholesterol at the end of each diet period are presented in this table. ^cThe actual numbers for total plasma cholesterol were not reported in HDAT and the numbers in this table were estimated from graphs reported in the study. This estimation is consistent with Hooper et al. [18], as they estimated from the graph that the average plasma cholesterol of the experimental group was 18 mg/dl lower than the control group at the end of the trial