[stavros]

So basically the 170 mg/dL TC limit that my lab shows is very suboptimal, and I should go for 230 instead?

[sooheon]

No. Please don't make health decisions off of incorrect inferences from observational studies. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30893041

[imtringued]

Imagine you have container ships named HDL and it is loaded with containers called triglycerides. You don't know how many containers you have. You just know you have this many container ships. Do you have too many containers? Do you have too many ships? That question cannot be answered with just one absolute number.

This is why the HDL to triglycerides ratio exists.

[jeffbee]

170 would be in the lowest quartile for American adults, no? Seems like an unreasonable limit.

[stavros]

I'm in Greece, but it seems fairly unreasonable here as well. Other labs have the limit at 200 (it varies per lab), but 170 seems too low.

[myle]

Greeks tend to have higher "normal" cholesterol levels. In other labs I have seen in Greece, they write as the limit 200.

I know of someone with TC around 240 and the doctor didn't prescribe statins. Not a medical advice.