How to Calculate Total Cholesterol

Video Transcript

"Today people in our country are very very concerned about heart disease and certainly that takes us to cholesterol, monitoring our cholesterol and making sure that those levels are safe. Hi my name is Jani Roberts and I'm a graduate of the Academy of Nutrition and also a Nationally Certified Personal Trainer. Today I'd like to share with you some ideas with you and really explaining exactly how total weight is calculated. First of all it is important to understand that this is not something you can do yourself. What you need to do is you need to see a doctor, blood work needs to be drawn and what is done is known as a lipid panel. Prior to the lipid panel you will be asked to fast. So you'll be fasting the night before taking in nothing as far as food or liquids, particularly liquids, nothing after midnight. So the fast takes place and then when the blood test is done it is much easier for them to see what is present there. Now when they do this lipid panel they are looking for more than just your total cholesterol but today we're going to address that. They are also going to see your triglyceride levels, so you have here I just have it abbreviated tri. So this is the triglyceride level that comes back on that test. When you have that number, that number has been divided by five and this is what is going to give you your total cholesterol. Now the total cholesterol is not necessarily what you are completely concerned about. The most important fact even more so than the total cholesterol number that comes back is what your cholesterol ratio is between the good and bad cholesterol or the HGL and the LDL. FYI, concerns come in when the cholesterol level is 186 or higher. Now we have been looking at changing that 186 number to 200 but anything in this range or more there is a concern. The good news is cholesterol can completely be controlled through lifestyle change without having to use medication so certainly we want to give that a try first. I'm Jani Roberts. Thanks for joining us."