lipid profile

My levels are total cholesterol 133
                                    trig    38
                                    hdl    47
                                     ldl    78
                                chol/hdl  3

Are these levels too low? If they are what does that mean?

[jim62]

Looks about perfect to me.  Could try to lower the ldl a little bit more.

Why the concern about it being too low?

[kenkeith]

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QUOTE:
My levels are total cholesterol 133
                                    trig    38
                                    hdl    47
                                     ldl    78
                                chol/hdl  3

Are these levels too low? If they are what does that mean?
__________________________________________________________________

To give the lipid measurement some meaning is to determine what group has a higher risk for heart disease and a perspective divide CHOL reading by HDL, etc.

"A very convenient way of expressing your risk of heart disease which takes into account both the total (bad) and HDL (good) cholesterol is the ratio between the two. If this is under 4.5, you don't need to worry, although a 'perfect' score would be under 3.5. So if your total cholesterol is 200 mg/dl and your HDL 50 mg/dl, your ratio is 4, and you're OK. But if your total is 200 and your HDL 35, your ratio is 5.7, and you may have a problem.

The ratio is sometimes expressed as the LDL/HDL ratio, in which case the cutoff points would be lower, as shown in the Tables.. It's actually no better than the cholesterol/HDL ratio in terms of predicting who's at risk, and more expensive to perform.

Risk of Heart Disease according to lipid ratios for MEN:

Below average risk group
3.8 & below....Chol/HDL
2.3 & below....LDL/HDL

Average
3.9-4.7....CHOL/HDL      
2.3-4.9....LDL/HDL

Moderate
4.8-5.9.....CHOL/HDL
4.9-7.1....LDL/HDL

High
6.0 & above.....CHOL/HDL
7.2 & above.....LDL/HDL

Risk of Heart Disease according to lipid ratios for WOMEN:

Below average
2.9 & below...CHOL/HDL
2.3 & below....LDL/HDL

Average
3.0-3.6....CHOL/HDL
2.3-4.1....LDL/HDL

Moderate
3.7-4.6....CHOL/HDL
4.1-5.6....LDL/HDL

High
4.7 & above...CHOL/HDL
5.7 & above...LDL/HDL