How is high cholesterol diagnosed?

    Researchedby:
    Mike Murray

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    by:

    Nick Milazzo, James Gaylor
    Last Updated: October 25, 2023

    High cholesterol is diagnosed using a blood test. Generally, LDL isn’t measured directly, but is instead estimated using LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C), which is a measure of the total amount of cholesterol contained within LDL particles and is highly correlated with LDL particle number.[1] Blood samples can be collected in a fasted or nonfasted state.[2] For people at low cardiovascular risk, an LDL-C goal of <116 mg/dL is recommended.[3]

    References

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    2. ^Frank L J Visseren, François Mach, Yvo M Smulders, David Carballo, Konstantinos C Koskinas, Maria Bäck, Athanase Benetos, Alessandro Biffi, José-Manuel Boavida, Davide Capodanno, Bernard Cosyns, Carolyn Crawford, Constantinos H Davos, Ileana Desormais, Emanuele Di Angelantonio, Oscar H Franco, Sigrun Halvorsen, F D Richard Hobbs, Monika Hollander, Ewa A Jankowska, Matthias Michal, Simona Sacco, Naveed Sattar, Lale Tokgozoglu, Serena Tonstad, Konstantinos P Tsioufis, Ineke van Dis, Isabelle C van Gelder, Christoph Wanner, Bryan Williams, ESC Scientific Document Group, ESC National Cardiac Societies2021 ESC Guidelines on cardiovascular disease prevention in clinical practiceEur Heart J.(2021 Sep 7)
    3. ^François Mach, Colin Baigent, Alberico L Catapano, Konstantinos C Koskinas, Manuela Casula, Lina Badimon, M John Chapman, Guy G De Backer, Victoria Delgado, Brian A Ference, Ian M Graham, Alison Halliday, Ulf Landmesser, Borislava Mihaylova, Terje R Pedersen, Gabriele Riccardi, Dimitrios J Richter, Marc S Sabatine, Marja-Riitta Taskinen, Lale Tokgozoglu, Olov Wiklund, ESC Scientific Document Group2019 ESC/EAS Guidelines for the management of dyslipidaemias: lipid modification to reduce cardiovascular riskEur Heart J.(2020 Jan 1)