Your cholesterol numbers are so closely related with some aspects of your health that life and health insurance companies use them to determine the cost of your premiums. For a long time, science thought there was just one kind of cholesterol, and that it was universally bad. Since the 1990s, however, nutritionists understand that there are different kinds of cholesterol.
Cholesterol Basics
Cholesterols are fatty substances that flow through your bloodstream and carry materials to and from various destinations. Low-Desinsity Lipoproteins, "LDLs" tend to clump and clog your bloodstream. They're the bad cholesterols science has known about for years. HDLs, or "High-Density Lipoproteins" carry contaminants away, cleaning the bloodstream of LDLs and contributing to your circulatory health. Although there isn't a one-to-one correlation, the amount and type of cholesterol you eat contributes to the amount and kind of cholesterols in your blood.
HDL Cholesterol
HDL cholesterol is good cholesterol, and you want your levels of this type to be high. Health resource website MayoClinic.com recommends HDL cholesterol levels of at least 50 milligrams per deciliter, and prefers levels above 60. If your count is below 50 mg/dL for women, or 40 mg/dL for men, your HDL levels are too low. This can increase your risk for circulatory problems, including heart disease, heart attack and stroke.
LDL Cholesterol
Low-density lipoproteins contribute to circulatory problems, meaning low LDL levels are desirable for best health. However, when it comes to LDLs you can have too little of a bad thing. MayoClinic.com reports that very low levels of LDL cholesterol can put you at higher risk of cancer, depression and anxiety. Expecting mothers have higher risk of low birth weight or preterm birth at levels this low. Although optimum heart health comes with LDL levels below 70 mg/dL, levels below 35 mg/dL begin to increase your risk.
Total Cholesterol
Total cholesterol is a metric that balances the risk factors of LDL cholesterol with the benefits of HDL. You calculate it by subtracting your LDL count from your HDL count, then adjusting for Trigycerides -- a kind of cholesterol associated with blood glucose and diabetes. Healthy levels of total cholesterol are below 200 mg/dL. Total cholesterol is a bad measure for determining if your cholesterol is too low, because the interaction of LDL vs HDL can mean different things. For example, somebody with high HDL and high LDL might have a low score but not be at risk, while somebody with a lower HDL and LDL may be at risk despite having a higher score.
