It is NOT obvious that low-fat diets are the healthier choice.
The Mediteranean diets, the french diet, and the blubber
eating eskimo diets are high in fat, and are examples of
cultures with less heart disease than americans.
So you see, the "forest" you are proposing is exactly
what is being challenged by these "radical" diets.
"I really can't quite see why you're so hung up on whether it was the "Ornish protocal" "
Because longshot entered this thread with the END ALL answer
to all dieting, and made the ridiculous claim that the Ornish
diet was the ONLY, and yes he said **ONLY** diet with
objective definitive PROOF that it can reverse heart disease.
THEN he consistently failed to provide a SINGLE study which
used the Ornish protocol. Thats why.
"I mean, there are probably God knows how many joggers and non-smokers out there that develop heart disease, so your insistence on the possible importance of these factors seems pretty weird."
And there are countless French, Greeks and Eskimos who
eat tons of fat that DONT.
It is NOT a clear cut case. Diet and the human body is
extremly COMPLEX and I am not aware of ANYONE
who can claim they have all the answers.
And certainly not longshot.

He has failed to support ANY of his assertions to date.
peace
axeman
Quote from alfonso:
You demand I see the forest, but the only problem is,
you don't really have any trees 
Christ axe, the forest is obviously that low-fat diets are the healthier choice. While I don't think this point has conclusively, now and forever more, been proven, there is, I think it's clear, there is some very strong supporting evidence.
I really can't quite see why you're so hung up on whether it was the "Ornish protocal" (sounds like a spy thriller) that was followed. What the study did bear out, again not to a case-closed level, was that heart disease was reversed -- and the reversal, it is eminently logical to conclude, was most likely effected by the diet employed. I mean, there are probably God knows how many joggers and non-smokers out there that develop heart disease, so your insistence on the possible importance of these factors seems pretty weird.