Finally — some good health news for America.
For the first time in nearly fifty years, the average cholesterol level for adults is in the “ideal” range. Health experts say that a cholesterol level of 200 or lower is ideal, and the average American adult has a cholesterol level of 199. The percentage of adults with high cholesterol (240 and above) dropped from a high of twenty percent in the 1990s to sixteen percent.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control have been monitoring the national cholesterol level since 1960. In the very first year of the survey, the national average cholesterol level was a whopping 222.
But wait — aren’t Americans generally overweight? Aren’t we fatter than we were in 1960? How can cholesterol levels be going down if waistlines are expanding? Maybe you can guess the reason — use of cholesterol lowering medications in middle-aged and older Americans. The variety of cholesterol lowering medications available today is playing a HUGE part in the results. In fact, cholesterol medications are the top-selling type of drug in the United States. Sales have grown steadily over the last few years, topping out at nearly twenty-two billion dollars annually in 2006.
Many health experts have been suggesting an aggressive stance on cholesterol control — especially in patients who are at risk for heart disease. Cholesterol screening has also become a lot more common in the last five years or so. Approximately two-thirds of men and three-fourths of women had been screened for high cholesterol.
This average doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve won the war against cholesterol. The most pronounced declines in cholesterol level came in men over forty and women over sixty — the groups most likely to be treated with cholesterol lowering medications. There was little change in cholesterol levels for other age groups.
Taking the people who are on cholesterol lowering medication out of the equation might show some very different numbers.