Hi Margaret,

Great job staying active and maintaining a healthy body weight. A total cholesterol of 6.4 is elevated. Ideally you want total cholesterol to be less than 5.1. HDL is considered the good cholesterol and ideally needs to be greater than 1.5 and LDL ("bad") cholesterol needs to be less than 2.6 to be ideal according to the American Heart Association. Many times a high HDL level can counteract the negative of a high LDL level. This depends on the different particle sizes of your HDL and LDL molecules. That's probably too complicated to understand, but your physician should be able to tell you if you need to take steps to lower your LDL level regardless of the high good cholesterol.

You may be interested in this post: http://www.healthcentral.com/heart-disease/c/45112/60676/questions-dr/2 - Question #6.

All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
How to Lower Cholesterol in 8 Simple Steps