Raise Your HDL Cholesterol To Lower Heart Disease Risk? Fuhgeddaboudit.

HDL is known as the “good” cholesterol. People with higher HDLs are supposed to be at lower risk for heart disease. So if you can increase your HDLs, you should improve your heart health, right?

Sorry, but the answer is turning out to be a resounding “No!”

A large study indicates that if you have a high level of HDL that may be a sign your heart is healthy, but merely raising your HDLs won’t confer better cardiovascular health. That’s disappointing news to drug companies that are hard at work developing pharmaceuticals intended to lift HDL totals.

“I’d say the HDL hypothesis is on the ropes right now,” Dr. James A. de Lemos, a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who was not involved in the study, told The New York Times.

“When people see (cholesterol) numbers in the abnormal range they want to do something about it,” researcher Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, director of preventive cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, told The Times. “It is very hard to get across the concept that the safest thing might be to leave people alone.”