Most people have at least heard about cholesterol, usually when they're about to eat something considered unhealthy. They know that high cholesterol is bad and low cholesterol is good. 

But that's about it. Throw in fancy sounding terms like LDL and HDL and most people will ask "What the L?"

Cholesterol, in fact, is found in the cell membranes throughout the human body and is transported via blood. This is why a blood test is needed to determine your cholesterol levels.

It used to be that people would find out their total cholesterol count after the cholesterol test and be told based on the scale at the time whether their cholesterol level was low, normal, or high. 

This sufficed for quite a while, but as we now know there is much more information gathered about cholesterol during the test. LDL, HDL, and triglycerides are just some of the additional items tested for during a cholesterol test.

We now know that the total cholesterol level just gives us part of the picture. Having high numbers in one of the categories of cholesterol might be good while in another it might be bad, as is the case with LDL and HDL cholesterol. LDL is considered the "bad" cholesterol, while HDL is considered the "good" cholesterol.

The truth is though that during a blood test, only HDL (along with triglycerides and the total cholesterol) is actually measured. LDL is determined as the total cholesterol - total HDL cholesterol - 20% of the triglycerides.

It is important that you look at both you LDL and HDL numbers as well as your total cholesterol.

Mike Abraham is a freelance article writer. 
You can see more information on cholesterol at http://www.abesreview.com/cholesterol

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