Sad to hear Laurie though believe it or not but my cholesterol levels have always been fine, it seems smoking was the culprit. The tar in the cigs makes the side walls of your arteries sticky, thus the fat build up. It's a known fact that the lack of animal fats in the diet starves the brain of vital nutrients {not in any way knocking vegetarians} hence logic and other mental functions can suffer. One prominent WW2 leader comes to mind who was a "veggie" though of course I won't mention the name. Oh by the way I immediately quit the "devils sticks" after my incident four years ago