Cholesterol HDL LDL Ratio and Heart Disease Risk

Information on HDL LDL ratio. Get to know the relevant chart and levels.

To make you clear the ratio is a kind of comparison between HDL (good cholesterol) with LDL (bad cholesterol).

 If you decide to use this ratio, keep in mind that your aim is to keep it always Above 0.3 (ideally above 0.4).

Understanding the ratio

Since cholesterol is not soluble in blood, it is helped by other substances (called lipoproteins ).

So, HDL (good cholesterol) picks up the excessive cholesterol and send it back to the liver.

Meanwhile, LDL (bad cholesterol) transports it in your body. Too much LDL over time (years) may lead in narrowing and hardening of your arteries. And the final result is heart stroke or heart attack.

When you perform a lipid profile, you’ll get all your cholesterol levels together with the ratio figures.

This ratio is calculated by dividing your ldl cholesterol level into hdl cholesterol (ratio = HDL/LDL). Thus, you will take info on how hdl stands in front of ldl .

Let’s take e simple example. If your hdl levels are 55 mg/dl and your ldl cholesterol is 155 mg/dl, your hdl ldl ratio would be around 0.35. And it is good. Your aim to keep it above 0.3 (or ideally above 0.4).

• You can easily estimate your cholesterol hdl ratio by dividing HDL or good cholesterol into total cholesterol level.

For instance, if you have levels of 300mg/dl total cholesterol, and 60mg/dl HDL cholesterol, your ratio of total cholesterol to hdl is 5:1

Effectiveness of using the ratio to determine the risk of heart disease

This ratio is randomly used to determine the risk of developing heart disease. Recently cholesterol research scientists and doctors don’t agree on the effectiveness of using the ratio to determine the risk for heart disease.

When starting your treatment to lower ldl and total cholesterol, your doctor will see the total cholesterol count together with your hdl and ldl levels.

If your doctor decides to start with a lowering cholesterol drugs, discuss with him/her for other natural alternatives.

Theraupeutic lifestyle changes and the right diet strategy can be some natural options to get your goal.

The ideal hdl ratio is less than 3. For a good start, you should try to maintain this ratio at a level less than 5:1

The higher your cholesterol hdl ratio, the higher your risk to cardiovascular diseases.The importance of hdl cholesterol ratio is that doctors use this ratio to predict your susceptibility to develop a heart disease. It does not have an influence on your doctor’s treatment plan to reduce high cholesterol complications. 

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the doctors are advised to use the absolute numbers for total cholesterol level and HDL cholesterol level in the blood. This should serve as an alternative of the ratio when deciding the appropriate treatment plan and to reduce the risk of heart diseases at the same time.

Please keep in mind that both HDL “good” cholesterol and LDL “bad” cholesterol might have an influence on your risk to heart diseases. The aim of a successful treatment is to raise HDL and lower LDL levels.

The journal of American Medical Association has published a report summarizing the relationship between hdl cholesterol ratio and the risk of heart diseases (based on recommendations of The National Cholesterol Education Program) as shown on the table below:

As you may notice, the HDL level is inversely proportional with the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, it is 8 times more indicative to development of heart diseases than total cholesterol level.

That’s why you should have a cholesterol blood test (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and TG) every 5 years if not having any disease or as scheduled by your physician. 

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