Rudel's critics say it's a big leap from monkey arteries to deciding what humans should eat.

FORBES: The Myth of Extra Virgin

Rudel's monkeys benefited from these but not from the monounsaturated fats that the body can make itself.

FORBES: The Myth of Extra Virgin

"Steven Nissen is a good salesman, " says Larry L. Rudel, a cholesterol researcher at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.

FORBES: Peeking at Plaque

But Rudel has spent two decades feeding primates different types of fat and then checking the gunk in their arteries after several years.

FORBES: The Myth of Extra Virgin

Fat chance, says Lawrence Rudel, a researcher at Wake Forest University.

FORBES: The Myth of Extra Virgin

The NIH is currently paying Rudel to see exactly what kind of damage man-made trans fats, found in fries and Krispy Kremes, can do to monkey arteries.

FORBES: The Myth of Extra Virgin

Tufts endocrinologist Ernst Schaefer backs up Rudel's claims and adds that a better understanding of specific types of dietary fat could have an important impact on reducing heart disease.

FORBES: The Myth of Extra Virgin

For 21 years, Marjorie Eliot has opened her home for weekly jazz matinees, taking turns on the piano with her son Rudel Drears and gigging with a variety of musicians and singers.

BBC: Matinee jazz in a Manhattan parlour