The Normal Levels of Cholesterol
Article by Saadi
There is a lot of talk about high cholesterol, bad cholesterol, and good cholesterol, but what exactly is considered normal levels of cholesterol?
Cholesterol
The world of cholesterol and cholesterol scoring can be rather confusing. Most people think that having high cholesterol is bad, but that is only true of one type of cholesterol. Many people don’t realize that there are actually two kinds of cholesterol and any time you get your levels tested both of these levels are measured.
HDL
The good kind of cholesterol is called HDL or high density lipoprotein. This kind of cholesterol is beneficial to your body and will help to keep the bad levels in check. The normal levels of cholesterol when looking at the HDL numbers are at a score of 60 or above. A score of at least 60 is what you want, but the higher the number the better. If you have an HDL score of fewer than 40 you are at an increased risk for heart disease; which can lead to heart attack.
HDL is fast moving and works as is part of the building blocks that make up your cells, bile, and body. These forms of lipoprotein will also help to move the slower and “bad” cholesterol out of your arteries. For having at least normal levels of cholesterol in HDL is vitally important.
LDL
The other kind of cholesterol is the bad brother to HDL. The bad cholesterol is called LDL or low density lipoprotein. Having a score of less than 100 is optimal for the LDL variety. Of course, your age and family history will help to determine what the normal levels of cholesterol are when it comes to LDL. This type of cholesterol is slow and prone to clogging your arteries; which can lead to stroke or heart attack.
The LDL levels of cholesterol are broken down into several levels because they tend to fluctuate more than the HDL variety.
Basically, if your score is 100 to 120 this is considered normal or close to borderline. At this level your doctor would more likely want to watch your levels, and depending on your HDL rating, you might need to change your diet or look at adding in supplements to try and improve your score.
An LDL score of 130 to 159 is considered borderline. An LDL score of 160 to 189 is also high, but not as serious as a score above that. Any number in this range should be considered serious and immediate changes to lifestyle and diet should be considered.
With LDL cholesterol a score of 190 or higher is considered dangerous and a serious immediate health risk. Your doctor will probably want to put you on prescription drugs immediately. It is also likely that you will be given a required restricted diet and frequent blood level checks until your levels get back under normal levels of cholesterol.
Knowing the normal levels of cholesterol is important because high levels of the bad kind and low levels of the good kind can lead to all sorts of serious medical problems including death.
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