Safe Blood Cholesterol Levels

Today I want to talk to you about safe blood cholesterol levels. What is a safe range for blood cholesterol levels? What is an ideal level of blood cholesterol?

The medically acceptable range is a blood cholesterol below 200 mg. per deciliter (dL). In some countries it would be below 5.2 millimoles (mmol) per liter. But the truth is, people still have heart attacks at 200 mg. per deciliter. The true ideal range to get your cholesterol into is below 150 mg. per deciliter, which is also below 3.9 millimoles per liter.

The scientific community knows this because in the Framingham Heart Study  –  the longest running heart disease study ever undertaken which began in the 1950s – medical researches like Dr. William Castelli showed us that people with a total blood cholesterol below 150 – or 3.9 millimoles per liter – almost never had a heart attack. So we now understand this to be the ideal rate.

And then of course there is the matter of good vs. bad cholesterol. The bad cholesterol (LDL cholesterol), should be no higher than 72 mg. per deciliter. So out of the 150 – the total – only 72 of that should be the bad cholesterol. If we're dealing with millimoles per liter (as we would say in Canada) then it should be under 1.8 millimoles per liter and up to 3.9 total cholesterol, with only 1.8 millimoles per liter being the LDL cholesterol fraction.