Let's breakdown what exactly cholesterol results mean, when you have your blood work drawn, you always want to make your blood fasting at a minimum of 12 hours. With those lab results you will have goals according to the American Heart Association for some range of numbers. Let's go over some of those numbers. Your total cholesterol range should be under 180 and Triglycerides under 150. Your HDL or good cholesterol s for men should be greater than 40. And for women it should be greater than 50. The bad cholesterol or LDL this is the cholesterol this bad cholesterol component that builds the blockage in our heart arteries and other vascular parts of our bodies such as the leg arteries, the brain arteries. This number needs to be less that 100 as an ideal range. Now once you have diabetes diagnosed or you have a documented blockage in your artery that number needs to be under 70.