Confused about Cholesterol results

[jonnoras]

Hi all. Can anyone shed some light on the following?
Just had my cholesterol results back and I'm confused by the nurses response.
She said they were normal and no action was necessary but everywhere I look my total cholesterol number is seen as high risk. My lipid breakdown is as follows
Serum Chol = 6.42
Serum Tri = 0.81
HDL = 1.83
LDL = 4.22
Ratio = 3.5
Non HDL = 4.59
Do these figures look OK. It clearly says on the spreadsheet Normal - no action.
Any thoughts.
j

 

[bulkbiker]

Wow your nurse is a keeper.. can I swap her for my useless GP please?
Whilst the total cholesterol number may look high your Triglyceride to HDL ratio is very good.
Divide Trigs by HDL and you want to get as low as possible

"If lipid values are expressed as mmol/L (like in Australia, Canada, and Europe);

TG/HDL-C ratio less than 0.87 is ideal

TG/HDL-C ratio above 1.74 is too high

TG/HDL-C ratio above 2.62 is much too high"

Yours is 0.44 which is brilliant. This should also mean that your LDL (normally incorrectly called "bad'" cholesterol) are large fluffy particles which is exactly what you want. So all in all very good results.

 

[Bluetit1802]

They look OK to me. Total cholesterol on its own is meaningless. It is just the total of LDL + HDL + 46% of the triglycerides. It is the HDL and trigs that are the most important, and yours are good.. Unusual though for a nurse/doctor to say that, but hey ho, they aren't all baddies.

 

[jonnoras]

Wow your nurse is a keeper.. can I swap her for my useless GP please?
Whilst the total cholesterol number may look high your Triglyceride to HDL ratio is very good.
Divide Trigs by HDL and you want to get as low as possible

"If lipid values are expressed as mmol/L (like in Australia, Canada, and Europe);

TG/HDL-C ratio less than 0.87 is ideal

TG/HDL-C ratio above 1.74 is too high

TG/HDL-C ratio above 2.62 is much too high"

Yours is 0.44 which is brilliant. This should also mean that your LDL (normally incorrectly called "bad'" cholesterol) are large fluffy particles which is exactly what you want. So all in all very good results.

Wow. Thank you so much. That has really cleared things up. Thanks J

 

[jonnoras]

They look OK to me. Total cholesterol on its own is meaningless. It is just the total of LDL + HDL + 46% of the triglycerides. It is the HDL and trigs that are the most important, and yours are good.. Unusual though for a nurse/doctor to say that, but hey ho, they aren't all baddies.

Hey thanks for the reply. Yes I thought it was unusual at first. This nurse is a newbie and obviously intouch with current thinking. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated. j