Total Cholesterol @300!

[Spaniel]

My wife had her cholesterol checked today and the Total Chol. is 300.     I know, that's not good, and the doc put her on medication.    But I was wondering just how high can total chol. be measured?     Could a person have total chol. of 500?

[Sheryl]

Certainly, but of course that would be someone with a severe dyslipedemia.

 

If she was placed on medication based solely on total cholesterol without a lipid panel being done then she needs to see a better doctor.

 

She needs at minimum HDL, LDL and triglycerides done. There are different types of lipid disorders and which medication they respond to varies. As does the contribution diet makes.

 

Is she obese?

[Spaniel]

21 hours ago, Sheryl said:

Certainly, but of course that would be someone with a severe dyslipedemia.

 

If she was placed on medication based solely on total cholesterol without a lipid panel being done then she needs to see a better doctor.

 

She needs at minimum HDL, LDL and triglycerides done. There are different types of lipid disorders and which medication they respond to varies. As does the contribution diet makes.

 

Is she obese?

Thanks for the reply and no she is not obese.       Her other checks were  Triglycerides:  61

                                                                                                                                  HDL                 74

                                                                                                                                  LDL                 187

                                                                                                                                 Total Chol       307

 

                                                                                                                                  

 

[Sheryl]

Her triglycerides are normal and she has a healthy HDL.

 

Only  her LDL is elevated. She is at lower risk than she would be if her triglycerides were also high or if she did not have such healthy levels of HDL (?eat a lot of fish perhaps?)

In addition, the high LDL may be in error. It is complicated to explain, but standard lipid panels do not actually measure LDL, they calculate it indirectly from the other values and the equation used for this is not very accurate when triglyceride levels are low. In other words, the level may be falsely elevated.

 

It would be worth getting a direct LDL measurement before embarking on long term statin use.