The lipids that are most commonly tested are total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides. It is important for all adults to have their lipid levels tested.
Abnormalities can indicate the risk for developing heart disease.
The following table classifies lipid levels. It is more useful to evaluate the specific cholesterol numbers. However, cholesterol is sometimes expressed as a ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol. The total cholesterol value is divided by the HDL cholesterol value to obtain the number. If the total cholesterol is 180 and the HDL cholesterol is 40 then the ratio would be 4.5.