[JeremyNT]

I've always had high-ish cholesterol. I dramatically cut down on carbs and animal protein (no meat at all, but still some dairy and eggs) which resulted in only modest improvement to LDL.

I do cardio at least 3 times a week and train a form of calisthenics (push ups, pull ups, dips, etc) at least three days a week.

It doesn't really do much for the numbers. I think some people just draw the short straw on cholesterol.

The trick to it is that cholesterol is only one of many subtle risk factors in cardiovascular health. As this article suggests, it's obviously not the case that high cholesterol is universally associated with worse outcomes, and there's no guarantee that improving the test scores will provide any benefit for an otherwise healthy patient. Does the doctor look at the whole person and their exercise regimen and conclude it's not worth medicating for the cholesterol risk? Or do they consider that lowering cholesterol can improve risk even further and so recommend medication? There's actually a protocol here that includes cholesterol as only one factor.

Ideally, a model like the one in this article could help better understand who to actually treat. We know cholesterol is a reliable proxy for risk at population levels, but if it could be ruled out for individual parents that would be very helpful.