Diets in which the fatty acid composition of a particular class of fatty acids
diverged markedly from that in normal mixed diets were excluded.
For example, Grande et al (17) specifically examined the effects
of stearic acid on serum lipids. Because stearic acid is hypocholesterolemic
compared with other SFAs (2), including this data
point would have resulted in a biased estimate of the effect of a
normal mixture of SFAs.