While high levels of “good” cholesterol have long known to be beneficial, its excess can also raise your risk of death, researchers claim.
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Cholesterol:
- Cholesterol is a fatty substance known as a lipid and is vital for the normal functioning of the body.
- However, the findings showed that people with extremely high levels of good cholesterol.
- In addition,have a higher mortality rate than people with normal levels.
- For men with extremely high levels, the mortality rate was 106 per cent higher than the normal group.
- While for women it was found to be 68 per cent higher.
According to experts:
- These results radically change the way we understand ‘good’ cholesterol.
- Doctors have been used to congratulating patients who had a very high level of HDL in their blood.
- But we should no longer do so, as this study shows a dramatically higher mortality rate.
- For the study, the team analysed data of 116,000 people.
- They were followed for an average of six years and the result showed over 10,500 deaths.
- On the other hand, people with extremely low levels of HDL in the blood were also at increased risk of mortality, the researchers said.
- The people with medium levels of HDL in the blood had the lowest mortality.
- For men, this level was 1.9 mmol/L. For women, it was 2.4 mmol/L.
It appears that we need to remove the focus from HDL as an important health indicator in research at hospitals and at the general practitioner,” expert said.