Cholesterol count not critical for healthy women, study contends.(Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)

SAN JOSE, Calif. _ One of the fundamental findings of modern medicine that Americans have embraced _ lowering cholesterol will protect us from dying of heart attacks _ does not apply to women, San Francisco researchers have found.

In the first major attempt to assess the case for cholesterol-lowering along gender lines, the researchers concluded there's no evidence that healthy women, who don't yet have heart disease, will die at a lesser rate if they lower their cholesterol. Their findings are likely to startle millions of people and provoke debate among doctors who have long assumed that women should lower their cholesterol just like men do.

``We as a nation have been very obsessed with…