HGs ate wild game, not feedlot meat. If you look up wild elk, moose or whale meat in the USDA National Nutrient Database, you will find that their palmitic acid content (represented as 16:0 under saturated fat in the database) is so low they could be part of an Ornish diet. (1) Even though HGs ate the whole carcass, the average palmitic acid consumption was only about 1/2 that of Americans according to Professor Loren Cordain in his book The Paleo Diet. In fact whale meat contains about 1/75 the amount of palmitic acid found in a comparable portion of T-bone from a feedlot steer. It's also an objective fact that their serum cholesterol is in the 100 to 150 range and their LDL is in the 50 to 70mg/dL range. (2)
In metabolic ward studies when the AVERAGE American eats a high animal fat diet, their serum cholesterol goes up a lot. Dr. Stephen Phinney conducted a metabolic ward trial with nine healthy lean men during weight maintenance, not weight loss. These men consumed nothing but meat, fish, eggs, cheese and cream (no hydrogenated vegetable oil) for 35 days. Their carbohydrate intake was less than 20 grams a day. Their blood cholesterol went up from 159 to 208 on average in 35 days. (3) That is a 31% increase. The average adult in this country has a cholesterol level of 199. A 31% increase would give 261. The high risk category is anything over 240.
A meta-analysis of 395 metabolic ward experiments concluded that in typical British diets replacing 60% of saturated fats by other fats and avoiding 60% of dietary cholesterol would reduce blood total cholesterol by about 0.8 mmol/l (that is, by 10-15%), with four fifths of this reduction being in low density lipoprotein cholesterol. (4)
The Masai (they are not hunter gatherers and they eat a lot of dairy) seem to contradict this, but 82% of their food additives contain potentially cholesterol lowering saponins or phenolics. (5) If their food wasn't full of statin-like chemicals their serum cholesterol would be high also.
Like the Masai, Pacific Islanders actually did eat a lot of saturated fat, but it was from coconuts. These are high in lauric acid and polyphenols instead of palmitic acid and don't raise serum cholesterol as much. They also improve the LDL/HDL ratio while feedlot meat makes it worse. (6,7)
Finally the very low LDL levels of modern HGs have not been duplicated in clinical trials of Paleo diets even when people eat only lean meat. However various parasitic infections which are common among HGs can lower LDL. In fact the parasitic infection, schistosomiasis, has been shown to lower LDL and reverse atherosclerosis in mice. (8)
REFERENCES
1. The USDA National Nutrient Database: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search
2. O'Keefe JH Jr, Cordain L, Harris WH, Moe RM, Vogel R. Optimal low-density lipoprotein is 50 to 70 mg/dl: lower is better and physiologically normal. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2004 Jun 2;43(11):2142-6.
3. Phinney SD, Bistrian BR, Wolfe RR, Blackburn GL. The human metabolic response to chronic ketosis without caloric restriction: physical and biochemical adaptation. Metabolism. 1983 Aug;32(8):757-68.4. Clarke R, Frost C, Collins R, Appleby P, Peto R. Dietary lipids and blood cholesterol: quantitative meta-analysis of metabolic ward studies. BMJ. 1997 Jan 11;314(7074):112-7.
5. Johns T, Mahunnah RL, Sanaya P, Chapman L, Ticktin T. Saponins and phenolic content in plant dietary additives of a traditional subsistence community, the Batemi of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania. J Ethnopharmacol. 1999 Jul;66(1):1-10.
6. Assunção ML, Ferreira HS, dos Santos AF, Cabral CR Jr, Florêncio TM. Effects of dietary coconut oil on the biochemical and anthropometric profiles of women presenting abdominal obesity. Lipids. 2009 Jul;44(7):593-601.
7. Beauchesne-Rondeau E, Gascon A, Bergeron J, Jacques H. Plasma lipids and lipoproteins in hypercholesterolemic men fed a lipid-lowering diet containing lean beef, lean fish, or poultry. Am J Clin Nutr. 2003 Mar;77(3):587-93.
8. Doenhoff MJ, Stanley RG, Griffiths K, Jackson CL. An anti-atherogenic effect of Schistosoma mansoni infections in mice associated with a parasite-induced lowering of blood total cholesterol. Parasitology. 2002 Nov;125(Pt 5):415-21. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12458825
