Low cholesterol doesn't necessarily give you protection against heart trouble.
My latest readings were:
CHOLESTEROL 134
CHOLESTEROL, NON-HDL 103
CHOLESTEROL, HDL 31
CHOLESTEROL, LDL 59
And, I know what all of this means ~ to wit: 134 is good, 103 is good, 31 is bad, 59 is good.
That I haven't had a significant change in over a decade is good. I've been working on the low HDL reading ~ when combined with a high LDL reading that's really bad ~ but no matter how much exercise I engage in, or what foods I eat over long periods of time, the readings don't budge.
My father is in his 90s and he has comparable readings ~ except his HDL is even lower.
It is presumptively HEREDITARY and under special circumstances it has a selective advantage. We think it has to do with eating a diet of almost nothing but sea mammals for several thousand years. This gives you a running start in the cholesterol sweepstakes. I am sure that if I could import canned seal from nearby Canada I could FIX my cholesterol problems in just a few months ~ maybe get those readings at least half way up to normal.
At 72, Kaiser Permanente was concerned that my cholesterol was above 200. On the other hand my blood pressure, is usually down below 110 over 65, or occasionally slightly higher. They asked if I wanted to take Lipitor. My response was that my grandfather lived to be 98, one of his sisters lived to 103 (she was a jolly person), and her other sisters died in their middle to upper 90s. My father who did not quit smoking until 87 died at 90 (after he had a stroke), and my mother died at 89 from congestive heart failure when the pig valve they inserted for her bad mitral valve 10 years earlier failed. All but one of her 5 brothers and sisters died in their 90s.
Since I don’t have a bad heart valve, have never smoked, don’t have a bad temper like my father, get more exercise than my mother and eat very healthy food, I said “no thanks”. I hope I did the right thing. I just wish I knew what my grandfather’s cholesterol levels were like.