It seems that the scientific community, which at one point thought that cholesterol levels up to 350 were okay, was surprised to find that people were dying of heart attacks with low levels of cholesterol - like 160 and 170. Further research uncovered the revelation that not all cholesterol is created equal. No surprise here, the higher the bad cholesterol the higher the risk of heart disease. The higher the good cholesterol the higher chances that you'll be okay. Currently, it is important to discuss triglycerides for a moment to help explain cardiovascular risk factors.
Triglycerides are fats that float around in the blood stream.
Let's say that your cholesterol is 201 and your HDL is 40. That's over a five to one ratio and with that the risk of cardiovascular problems is doubled. Smokers increase the risk of heart disease by a factor of four. That's really bad. So the big picture is that high cholesterol is bad, and other chemistries contribute to cardiac risk when they are out of balance.