PT47.S3.Q19 - although high cholesterol levels have been associated (flaw)

luffyyyy

Please help, I am having trouble understanding why A is wrong. We know that dietary changes --affect--> high cholesterol ---correlates / causes ---> heart disease, and we know that dietary changes don't affect lipoprotein(a). So the fact that the argument fails to consider the possibility that lipoprotein(a) raises cholesterol levels seems like a flaw to me because we can't conclude there is no reason for people to make dietary changes for preventing heart disease.

This is my line of reasoning: if lipoprotein(a) raises cholesterol level, which is affected by dietary changes, then we can't conclude "there is no reason to make dietary changes for preventing heart disease" because we know dietary changes affect cholesterol level which in turn is correlated with heart disease. Basically, if lipoprotein raises cholesterol levels, then people might want to change their diet and stop consuming foods that contain lipoprotein. I watched the explanation video many times, and I still don't understand why A is irrelevant.

Any help would be appreciated, thank you!!

LSAT Lizard

For me this hinges on the phrase "...of many people whose heart disease was not attributable to other causes," which describes people with elevated lipoprotein(a).

Since elevated cholesterol has been established as a (sometimes) correlate of developing heart disease, we can conclude that none of the people that were mentioned to have high lipoprotein(a) had above average cholesterol.

That pretty much destroys the idea that the lipoprotein(a) could cause elevated cholesterol, at least within the scope of the studies informing the stimulus author. By directly acknowledging that the people with high lipoprotein(a) did not have high cholesterol (or any other known heart disease causes), they've done their due diligence in ruling out a possible link between high lipoprotein(a) and high cholesterol- diligence that AC A accuses them of neglecting instead.

luffyyyy

Thank you so much @LSAT Lizard! It makes so much sense now