Unquestionably, those with a high blood level of cholesterol are, in general, much more likely than others to have a coronary heart attack or stroke. Cholesterol settles out onto the walls of their arteries and narrows them, so that they easily become completely blocked. Accordingly, Circulation (72:686) recommends, those who have high cholesterol should be treated to bring it down to a safer level. The big question, of course, is what is meant by “high cholesterol.”
In answering this, we must first explain that cholesterol is a mixture of HDL (high density lipoprotein) and LDL (low density lipoprotein), and that HDL is good and LDL is bad. One needs to worry about a cholesterol level only if the LDL fraction is present in excess.
This said, we can go on to say that anyone with a cholesterol above 230 mg-percent needs to be on a strict low-cholesterol diet, and that if the cholesterol is 260 mg-percent or more, a cholesterol-lowering drug is usually considered as well. At the other end of the scale, adults with cholesterols above 200 mg-percent (and children with levels above 170 mg-percent) should not eat much animal fat (i.e: eggs, whole milk, butter, cream, cheese, meat fat, etc.) since their levels are likely to rise above 230, too, if they are not careful.
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