As part of assessing your risk for cardiovascular disease, your health care practitioner will occasionally check your cholesterol level. In addition to total cholesterol, your doctor will check your HDL and LDL levels. High LDL is associated with cardiovascular disease risk, but high HDL is not--in fact, the higher your HDL is, the better.
Cholesterol
You probably think of cholesterol as a bad thing--most people do. Ironically, while too much of it can hurt you, you actually need a small amount to maintain normal cellular function. Despite this, however, many people struggle with too much cholesterol--almost no one has too little. When you have too much cholesterol, it builds up in your arteries, causing them to narrow and harden. This leads to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke.
"Good" Cholesterol
What you may hear called "good" cholesterol isn't actually a type of cholesterol; it's a cholesterol transporter particle. HDL--short for high-density lipoprotein--helps clear excess cholesterol out of your body cells and prevent it from building up in your arteries and forming plaques. HDL particles carry excess cholesterol back to the liver for excretion--you get rid of it via the intestines--so you actually want your HDL levels to be high for good cardiovascular health.
HDL Risk
Because it's common to think of HDL as a kind of cholesterol, and common to think of cholesterol as a bad thing, it's natural to assume that too much HDL is risky. This isn't the case, however; you should have high HDL--the higher the better--to help keep your arteries clean and healthy. The American Heart Association recommends that your HDL levels be above 60mg/dL for optimal heart health.
A Caveat
While high HDL isn't a bad thing, there is one way to increase your HDL level that isn't healthy if carried to excess: drinking alcohol. Alcohol consumption, per a 2000 study published in the journal "Circulation" by Dr. E. De Oliviera e Silva and colleagues, increases HDL. However, consuming too much alcohol can also increase your risk of certain cancers and, because alcohol contains calories, can increase your weight. As such, even though alcohol raises HDL--which is healthy--you should use alcohol moderately, if at all.
References
- American Heart Association; What Your Cholesterol Levels Mean; May 2011
- "Circulation"; Alcohol Consumption Raises HDL Cholesterol Levels by Increasing the Transport Rate of Apolipoproteins A-I and A-II; E. De Oliviera e Silva et al; 2000
