While I'm no expert on the cholesterol thing, I wanted to share my experience with both low-fat and low-carb.

Low Fat:

- could never last more than a week or two, would lose maybe 6 pounds or so and then quit because it was too hard
- ate lots of diet foods, such as Lean Cuisine meals, low-fat cookies, diet salad dressings
-felt tired and hungry all the time
-felt deprived
-would lose weight, only to regain it and MORE within a month, making the "diet" worse than not dieting at all..b/c it increased my weight over time
-headaches from being so hungry
-low energy
-grumpy and sort of bummed out most of the time...the diet made me feel like I couldn't enjoy myself..everything was such a struggle.. and I was forcing myself to eat things that tasted like cardboard all the time

Low Carb:

-almost three months into it now
-have lost almost 30 pounds
-I've eliminated trans fats from my diet
-I eat 3 cups of vegetables every day (lots of spinach and broccoli)
-I don't buy much in the way of processed foods, but rather..whole foods from the dairy, meat and produce section of the grocery store
-I eat the "good" fats, such as fish and olive oil - and here I think the ratio of good fats to the so-called bad fats is the important thing
-I never feel hungry or deprived
-I have much more energy..and it's a nice calm sort of energy
-with low carb, I know I'm going to reach my goal, and I have a pretty good feeling about being able to keep it off, because I find the food really good and I don't feel deprived like I did on low-fat.
-I don't feel like I'm being held hostage by my "diet" and I can enjoy myself without feeling like I'm on some sort of "works program" or what have you.

So...the point needs to be made...the diet that one can stick to is probably better than one that is a real struggle.

This being said, I am not sure about the cholesterol situation, but I'm trying to learn more about it.

I wanted mention a couple of things that might be relevant to heart healthy eating..

- I found these wonderful eggs, called "Omega 3 eggs", real eggs, but very high in Omega 3 because the chickens are fed flax..they taste the same as "regular" eggs

- I eat a lot of fish

- I eat a vegetable with every meal, including breakfast (spinach in an omelette, cherry tomatoes with poached eggs etc.) - how many people do you think actually eat veggies all the time?

- I use cheese as a condiment more than anything else...so I buy the nicely flavoured cheeses to grate onto my salads or onto hot steamed broccoli

- I eat spinach salad almost every day, topped with avocado and olive oil & vingegar dressing

Doesn't sound so "un-healthy" now does it?

Good luck with your decision, and best wishes in correcting your cholesterol situation.