Cholesterol Help

Exercise and weight loss will help with your ratio of HDL/LDL. What does too high mean, HDL should be high.

TOTAL cholesterol might not be as important as TOTAL LDL and/or the ratio of the two. HDL (the "good" kind") should be as high as most people can get it. 40 at least. LDL (the "bad" kind) should be as low as possible. Preferably under 100. However, some studies are showing it's more about the ratio of TOTAL Cholesterol to "good". With the aim being 3.5:1, but anything better than 5:1 isn't being shown by studies to raise cardiovascular disease risk. To find your ratio, divide your TOTAL cholesterol by your "good" HDL number.

If you have 220 total and your HDL is 20, then you have a ratio of 11:1. But if your HDL is 55, then you have a ratio of 4:1, which means even though your "bad" cholesterol might be above 100, your ratio is well within the range not shown to increase cardiovascular risk.

http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/finding-the-ideal-cholesterol-ratio
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cholesterol-ratio/AN01761

[Edited to fix some H/L typos]

I agree with below comments, along with possibly a stronger focus on what you eat for meals. You say you lost weight, but I didn't see if it was with exercise or mainly diet. Exercise is must, along with nutritional habits. Certain foods might help lower ...oatmeal, etc. ; might try to incorporate some of these in eating habits if not already doing it.

There are certain things you can change in your diet and your doctor should have provided you some guidance. Salmon and flax are really good to help cut out some of the LDL. Eggs, butter and cheese are some of the worst sources of cholesterol so try to avoid consuming much dairy. Obviously fried foods are really bad for cholesterol.

In the end, you'll probably see more benefit from the standard diet and exercise.

I am pretty sure that cholesterol is produced in the liver from the fats we consume, I would say really watching yand lowering your intake on high fat foods would help. We only need a small amount of healthy unsaturated fats a day....I think the major cause is from the saturated and trans fats. Maybe do some research into that! That is what I understand from it.

Actually as far as diet is concerned, everything influences our cholesterol levels, not just fat. If we wanted to just lower our cholesterol we could just eat refined carbs and sugar, that does a good job doing that, but that doesn't mean that's what we should do. There's much more to it.

For example, in LDL cholesterol there's different particle sizes and the small dense ones are atherogenic, the ones to watch out for. Two people could have identical LDL of 100 and one could have 3 times as many particles, that isn't what we want. High triglycerides and low HDL is the quick way your Dr can determine whether someone has ApoB/Lp(a) type particles and it's extremely accurate, and of course if someone has higher HDL and low triglcyreides then they more than likely have mostly the larger more buoyant LDL particles which are less atherogenic and some say protective, which I quess you could when looking at the alternative. Those refined carbs and sugar I mentioned actually lower HDL cholesterol and lower LDL but also increase triglycerides and increase ApoB type lipoproteins, not good at all, even though it lowered out total cholesterol.

Exercise and weight loss will help with your ratio of HDL/LDL. What does too high mean, HDL should be high.

This is true and to add to the above comment. There are different types of LDL and if it is the fluffy LDL, it is not dangerous to the body if it is high. Only small particle vLDL is harmful.

I am pretty sure that cholesterol is produced in the liver from the fats we consume, I would say really watching yand lowering your intake on high fat foods would help. We only need a small amount of healthy unsaturated fats a day....I think the major cause is from the saturated and trans fats. Maybe do some research into that! That is what I understand from it.

Sorry, but saturated fat has nothing to do with causing heart disease or high cholesterol.

http://www.sott.net/article/242516-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Out-On-What-Really-Causes-Heart-Disease

I've been doing some serious research lately as my father was diagnosed with heart disease and required a stent.
According to Dr. Esselstyn it is very important to keep all fats very low (about 10% of total calories) and eliminating animal products.
there are alot of other doctors supporting this advice too.

My cholesterol is about 220 also. I refused to be 31 years old and on Lipitor or some other drug like that at such a young age. Diet( eating the rigth foods ie spinach, oatmeal, kale, fruits, salmon, chicken, and other low fat foods), excercise, and red yeast rice pills (over the counter at any cvs or walgreens) has helped me get down to 196 in 4 months.