We'll get started in just a few minutes. More than likely, you would need to take it for the rest of your life. An exception would be if you were starting on the drug and diet at the same time, and then after changing the diet, if it were successful enough, that might remove the necessity of taking the drug. In general, bad cholesterol is over 130. That's LDL over 130.
Women tend to have higher levels of the good cholesterol than men.
There are some countries where the whole population has a low good cholesterol level, such as Turkey. But I think that one should have the same level of good cholesterol for different races in industrial societies. For example, in developing countries, good cholesterol may be low due to diet. In Turkey, we think it's low due to genetics. Yes, diet and exercise are very important, and taking a drug is no substitute for diet and exercise.