Raising HDL cholesterol comes down to consistent lifestyle changes, not medication. The most effective strategies are regular exercise, quitting smoking if you smoke, losing excess weight, and eating certain foods. HDL levels of 60 mg/dL or higher are considered optimal for both men and women, while levels below 40 mg/dL for men or below 50 mg/dL for women are considered low.
Current cardiology guidelines from the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology don’t recommend any drug specifically to raise low HDL. That’s because trials of HDL-raising medications failed to reduce heart attacks or strokes, even when they successfully boosted the number on your lab report. The focus of treatment is on lowering LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, while HDL is best improved through the lifestyle changes below.
Why HDL Matters
HDL particles act like cleanup crews in your bloodstream. They pull excess cholesterol out of the walls of your arteries, where it would otherwise build up into dangerous plaques. The cholesterol hitches a ride on HDL particles back to the liver, which breaks it down and removes it from the body. This process, called reverse cholesterol transport, is one of your cardiovascular system’s main defenses against artery disease.
What makes HDL uniquely valuable isn’t just the amount circulating in your blood, but how efficiently those particles do their job. That’s part of why simply pushing the HDL number higher with drugs hasn’t translated into fewer heart events. The lifestyle changes that raise HDL tend to also improve how well your HDL particles function, which is likely the real benefit.
Exercise Is the Strongest Lever
Physical activity is the single most reliable way to raise HDL. A study in the Journal of the American Heart Association tracked healthy young men through structured exercise programs and found that 12 weeks of moderate-intensity exercise (activities in the range of brisk walking, cycling, or swimming, averaging about 9 hours per week) raised HDL by 6.6%. When participants moved to a 15-week high-intensity program averaging 14 hours per week, HDL climbed an additional 8.2%.
You don’t need to exercise 9 to 14 hours a week to see benefits. Those were research protocols designed to test a dose-response relationship. The consistent finding across studies is that aerobic exercise raises HDL, and more vigorous or longer sessions produce larger gains. For most people, working up to 150 minutes per week of moderate cardio (brisk walking, swimming, cycling) is a realistic starting point. Adding some higher-intensity sessions, like jogging intervals or vigorous cycling, can amplify the effect.
Quit Smoking
Smoking suppresses HDL levels, and the good news is that the damage reverses quickly. Research shows HDL can start climbing back toward normal in as few as 17 days after quitting. By 30 days, one study found HDL increased by roughly 6 to 10 mg/dL in women who stopped smoking. The suppressive effect doesn’t appear to be cumulative either. HDL continues recovering as long as you stay smoke-free, eventually reaching levels comparable to people who never smoked.
Lose Excess Weight
If you’re carrying extra weight, losing it will raise your HDL. The relationship is roughly linear: for every kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) you lose, HDL rises by about 1 mg/dL. That means someone who loses 10 kilograms (22 pounds) could see their HDL increase by around 10 mg/dL, which is a meaningful shift, especially if you’re starting from a low baseline. The mechanism works partly because excess body fat interferes with how your body produces and processes HDL particles. Exercise combined with weight loss tends to produce the largest improvements.
Eat More Purple and Red Produce
One of the more interesting dietary findings involves anthocyanins, the pigments that give berries, cherries, red cabbage, purple grapes, and eggplant their deep color. A large meta-analysis of 41 clinical trials covering nearly 2,800 participants found that anthocyanin supplementation produced a significant increase in HDL cholesterol. The effect was especially strong in people under 40 and those with normal total cholesterol levels.
These compounds appear to work by improving the very process that makes HDL useful. They help cholesterol move out of immune cells embedded in artery walls and boost the efficiency of reverse cholesterol transport. Berries (blueberries, blackberries, black currants), tart cherries, and purple sweet potatoes are among the richest food sources. You don’t need supplements; regularly including a cup or two of berries or other deeply pigmented produce in your diet provides meaningful amounts.
Choose Your Fats Carefully
Replacing refined carbohydrates with healthy fats can support HDL levels. Monounsaturated fats found in olive oil, avocados, and nuts are particularly beneficial for overall cholesterol balance. That said, a Mediterranean-style diet rich in olive oil did not significantly raise HDL levels in a major trial covered by the American Heart Association, though it improved HDL function and reduced cardiovascular risk through other pathways.
The practical takeaway: don’t expect olive oil alone to move your HDL number dramatically, but a diet built around whole foods, healthy fats, and fiber supports HDL function in ways that go beyond what a simple blood test captures. Avoid trans fats entirely (still found in some processed foods and partially hydrogenated oils), as they lower HDL while raising LDL.
What About Alcohol?
Alcohol does raise HDL. A large multiethnic study found that increasing alcohol intake was associated with higher levels across multiple HDL markers, with moderate drinkers showing higher HDL than light drinkers. However, the same researchers noted that raising HDL through alcohol hasn’t been shown to reduce cardiovascular risk. And alcohol carries its own well-documented harms: liver disease, cancer risk, addiction, and caloric load that can undermine weight management.
If you already drink moderately, the HDL effect is a minor silver lining. But starting to drink, or drinking more, to raise your HDL is not supported by any current medical guideline.
Why Doctors Don’t Prescribe HDL Drugs
Niacin (vitamin B3) in high doses is one of the most potent HDL-raising agents ever studied, boosting levels by an average of 21% in clinical trials. Despite this impressive number, large trials found that niacin therapy did not reduce heart attacks, strokes, cardiovascular deaths, or deaths from any cause. The same pattern has played out with other drugs designed to raise HDL. The number goes up, but patients don’t live longer or have fewer cardiac events.
This is why the 2026 ACC/AHA cholesterol guidelines focus pharmacological treatment entirely on lowering LDL and triglycerides, not raising HDL. Low HDL is recognized as a marker of cardiovascular risk, but it’s treated as a signal to improve your overall metabolic health through lifestyle, not as something to target with a pill. The lifestyle changes that raise HDL, including exercise, weight loss, and better diet, carry broad cardiovascular benefits that go far beyond any single cholesterol number.