Effect on plasma cholesterol of a step 1 diet with or without increased monounsaturated fats

To the Editor: I have two comments concerning the interesting findings of Ginsberg et al. (March 1 issue).¹ First, the authors did not report the caloric intakes or exercise levels of the men during the study. Although body weights were reported not to have changed by more than 3 percent, even this small change could have been due to marked differences in energy intake or expenditure (or both) during the study. Such a difference between the treatment groups might also have accounted for some of the differences in the levels of total, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.