LDL and HDL Cholsterol

Most people have at least heard about cholsterol, usually when they’re about to eat something considered unhealthy. They know that high cholsterol is bad and low cholsterol is good. But that’s about it. Throw in fancy sounding terms like LDL and HDL and most people will ask “What the L?”

Cholsterol, in fact, is found in the cell membranes throughout the human body and is transported via blood. This is why a blood test is needed to determine your cholsterol levels.

It used to be that people would find out their total cholsterol count after the cholsterol test and be told based on the scale at the time whether their cholsterol level was low, normal, or high. This sufficed for quite a while, but as we now know there is much more information gathered about cholsterol during the test. LDL, HDL, and triglycerides are just some of the additional items tested for during a cholsterol test.

We now know that the total cholsterol level just gives us part of the picture. Having high numbers in one of the categories of cholsterol might be good while in another it might be bad, as is the case with LDL and HDL cholsterol. LDL is considered the “bad” cholsterol, while HDL is considered the “good” cholsterol.

The truth is though that during a blood test, only HDL (along with triglycerides and the total cholesterol) is actually measured. LDL is determined as the total cholsterol – total HDL cholsterol – 20% of the triglycerides.

It is important that you look at both you LDL and HDL numbers as well as your total cholsterol.