A good cholesterol level depends on which type you’re measuring, but the number most people mean when they search this is HDL, often called “good cholesterol.” For adults, an HDL level between 60 and 80 mg/dL is considered protective against heart disease. Below 40 mg/dL in men or below 50 mg/dL in women is considered low and raises cardiovascular risk.
But HDL is only one piece of the picture. Your full cholesterol panel includes LDL (the “bad” cholesterol), triglycerides, and total cholesterol. What counts as “good” for each number is different, and your overall risk depends on how all of them fit together alongside factors like age, blood pressure, and family history.
HDL: The Number You Want Higher
HDL cholesterol works like a cleanup crew in your bloodstream. It picks up excess cholesterol from your artery walls and carries it back to your liver for disposal. That’s why higher levels have traditionally been linked to lower heart disease risk.
The targets are straightforward. For both men and women, 60 mg/dL or above is considered best. The ideal range is 60 to 80 mg/dL. Men with HDL below 40 mg/dL and women below 50 mg/dL are at increased risk. The threshold is higher for women because estrogen tends to raise HDL naturally, so a lower number in women signals a bigger relative drop in protection.
One important nuance: an HDL above 80 mg/dL may not actually be healthier. A large study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute found that higher HDL levels were not associated with reduced cardiovascular disease risk in either Black or white adults. Researchers now think the quality of HDL, meaning how effectively it transports cholesterol out of your body, matters more than the sheer amount of it circulating. In other words, pushing HDL as high as possible isn’t necessarily the goal.
LDL: The Number You Want Lower
LDL cholesterol deposits cholesterol into your artery walls, where it can build up into plaques that narrow blood flow and eventually cause heart attacks or strokes. Lower is better here, but how low you need to go depends on your overall risk profile.
The most recent clinical guidelines, published in 2025 by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, set specific LDL targets based on your risk level:
- Very high risk (prior heart attack, stroke, or established cardiovascular disease): below 55 mg/dL
- High risk: below 70 mg/dL
- Intermediate or borderline risk: below 100 mg/dL
For a healthy adult with no major risk factors, keeping LDL under 100 mg/dL is the standard target. If you’ve already had a cardiovascular event, the bar is significantly lower.
Triglycerides, Total Cholesterol, and Non-HDL
Triglycerides are fats your body stores for energy. They aren’t cholesterol, but they show up on the same blood panel and contribute to cardiovascular risk when elevated. Healthy triglycerides are below 150 mg/dL for adults. Between 150 and 199 is borderline high, 200 to 499 is high, and anything above 500 is very high and carries additional risks like inflammation of the pancreas.
Total cholesterol is simply the sum of all your cholesterol types. It gives a rough snapshot but doesn’t tell you much on its own. Someone with a total cholesterol of 220 might be perfectly healthy if most of that is HDL, while someone at 190 could be at higher risk if their LDL is dominant.
That’s why many clinicians now focus on non-HDL cholesterol, which is your total cholesterol minus your HDL. This single number captures all the potentially harmful cholesterol particles in your blood, including LDL and several other types that standard panels don’t break out individually. It’s considered a better predictor of heart disease risk than either total cholesterol or LDL alone. You can calculate it yourself from your lab results by subtracting your HDL from your total cholesterol.
Your Numbers in Context
A cholesterol number by itself doesn’t tell you whether you need treatment. Risk calculators used in clinical practice factor in your age, sex, race, blood pressure, diabetes status, smoking history, and whether a parent had a heart attack before age 60. Two people with identical LDL levels can have very different risk profiles.
The newest guidelines lowered the threshold for considering cholesterol-lowering therapy to a 10-year cardiovascular risk of 3%, down from the previous 5%. This means more people in the intermediate-risk range may now qualify for treatment than under prior recommendations. The guidelines also recommend that every adult get their lipoprotein(a) measured at least once. Lipoprotein(a) is a genetically determined particle that raises cardiovascular risk independently of LDL, and levels at or above 125 nmol/L are now flagged as a risk-enhancing factor. Unlike regular LDL, lipoprotein(a) levels don’t change much with diet or exercise, so knowing your number helps your clinician assess risk more accurately.
When and How Often to Test
The CDC recommends cholesterol screening starting earlier than most people expect. Children should have their cholesterol checked at least once between ages 9 and 11, and again between 17 and 21. After that, most healthy adults should get a cholesterol panel every 4 to 6 years. If you have risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure, or a family history of early heart disease, more frequent testing makes sense.
A standard lipid panel requires a blood draw, sometimes after fasting for 9 to 12 hours (though non-fasting panels are increasingly accepted for routine screening). The results will list your total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides. Some panels also include non-HDL cholesterol and the total cholesterol-to-HDL ratio, which you can calculate by dividing your total cholesterol by your HDL. A lower ratio indicates better balance between protective and harmful cholesterol.
Quick Reference: Healthy Ranges for Adults
- HDL: 60 to 80 mg/dL (below 40 for men or 50 for women is too low)
- LDL: below 100 mg/dL for most adults, lower targets for higher-risk individuals
- Triglycerides: below 150 mg/dL
- Non-HDL cholesterol: total cholesterol minus HDL; generally the lower the better, with targets mirroring LDL goals plus about 30 mg/dL