Too Much “Good Cholesterol” Could Be Bad

Too Much “Good Cholesterol” Could Be Bad

For years now, doctors had been using cholesterol levels as a measure of health and the risks of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. It is well known that HDL, the high-density lipoproteins commonly referred to as “good cholesterol,” help to keep the levels of “bad cholesterol,” in the form of LDL or low-density lipoproteins, down. What is still uncertain is just how important is the ratio between the HDL and LDL.

Statins have been a popular drug prescribed by physicians to help lower the levels of LDL in patients, and now some new research includes trials of drugs which increase the levels of HDL. The results, however, have not been exactly what were expected.

In patients who took both drugs, the idea was that increasing the HDL and lowering the LDL should have a very positive net effect on the patient. However, it appears that too great a difference between the high HDL levels and the low LDL levels is not good. In 2006, patients in a clinical study who took both medications had a 58% greater instance death compared to the group which took only the statin drug during the same one year period. Researchers are now trying to determine the proper ratio between the two types of cholesterol.