Hearth Healthy: Total Cholesterol and Risks

MYTH: If your total cholesterol number is normal, you're not at risk for heart attack or stroke.

TRUTH: Doctors are well past relying simply on your total cholesterol number to measure how healthy your heart is, says Scott W. Shurmur, M.D. They also look at HDL (good) cholesterol, LDL (bad) cholesterol, triglycerides, and a fifth number--non-HDL cholesterol, which you get when you subtract HDL from your total cholesterol number.

"We like to see non-HDL cholesterol 30 points higher than your LDL measurement. It's a better predictor of heart attack risk than your total cholesterol number alone," Shurmur says.

Daniel Edmundowicz, M.D., says it's true some folks do well with high cholesterol if they don't have heart disease risk factors. But when those are present, cholesterol levels matter.

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