The USA is obsessed with cholesterol because of years of bad science. Here's a 2015 Japanese Supplementary Review on Cholesterol and Mortality Rates: Higher Cholesterol = Longer Life
https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/381654
It concludes:
> Our fervent wish is that, through this supplementary issue, people can see that the cholesterol hypothesis relies on very weak data—and sometimes considerably distorted data. Indeed, many studies in Japan actually show that cholesterol plays a very positive role in health. We hope that JAS, and the government authorities that defer to JAS’s recommendations, will move toward recognizing cholesterol as a friend not an enemy. In the meantime, we will continue pushing for acceptance of the anti-cholesterol hypothesis, to reverse what we see as the biggest mistake made by medical science in the previous century.