Cholesterol Numbers Are Still Baffling

Scientists at Brown University have used focus groups - interviews with groups of patients - to find out how well the various cholesterol numbers are understood. And the answer is, “not very well at all”. All the participants knew that high cholesterol level was a bad thing, but most didn’t know their own cholesterol numbers. Worse, many of them assumed that high cholesterol was only a problem for overweight or older people. And only a few knew that HDL was ‘good’ and LDL was ‘bad’.

The participants were then given a choice of three presentations trying to get across the risks associated with raised cholesterol levels. One was apparently easy for the participants to understand. It consisted of two horizontal bars representing the ages 0 to 76 years. The upper bar showed the person’s chronological age (e.g. 42 years). The lower bar showed the person’s HeartAge (e.g. 70 years), which was calculated by a formula similar to that used in the Framingham Heart Study, including information on the actual age, gender, cholesterol and systolic blood pressure numbers, family history of heart disease, and smoking history. The HeartAge chart was interpreted as a ‘wake-up call’, an ‘eye-opener’, ‘catchy’. Clearly a better solution than presenting three or four different lipid numbers, with their normal values.

So how do you find out your HeartAge? Well, you need to know your cholesterol numbers (all three of them) and your systolic blood pressure number. Then you can go to HeartAge.com and use the tool provided. (But it doesn’t work if you’ve got diabetes!)