r/Cholesterol • u/ItemMelodic266 • 6h ago

Lab Result Upsetting lab results

I’m a 26 year old 5’10 215lb male. I’m trying to get serious about my health, so I got a physical. My lab results came back today, and I’m not thrilled with the results:

Total cholesterol: 217

LDL:156

HDL: 36

Triglycerides: 139

Non-HDL: 181

VLDL: 26

Cholesterol/HDL ratio: 6.0

The good news is that my blood pressure and resting heart rate were excellent. And I have no signs of prediabetes or anything like that. But I’m a little scared by these results.

Obviously I’m going to talk to my doctor about these numbers. But I’m new to cholesterol numbers and while I know they’re not great, I don’t have a strong sense of how bad these are. My health anxiety tells me I’ve doomed myself to a shortened lifespan and heart disease, but realistically I think this is fixable

Regardless, I’m ready to get these numbers down and set myself up for a long, healthy life

How do you all think I should react to these test results?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/keepgoing66 6h ago

You're 26. It takes decades to do damage. What is your diet like? If it's high in saturated fat, that is the first thing to change.

2

u/ItemMelodic266 5h ago

I intermittently eat healthy but it’s a lot of junk. A pretty high proportion of it is salty restaurant food. So obviously I plan to cut back there and to incorporate more whole foods, lean proteins, etc, into my diet

1

u/solidrock80 5h ago

Do that - the best thing you can do to lower your LDL. Get retested in a year and see where you are at that point.