James Sullivan, the drummer for the Huntington Beach rock band Avenged Sevenfold, died on Monday, according to Orange County authorities. The cause of death is still under investigation. Sullivan, 28, was found unresponsive inside his home.
High total cholesterol and low HDL cholesterol increases the ratio, and is undesirable. Conversely, high HDL cholesterol and low total cholesterol lowers the ratio, and is desirable. An average ratio would be about 4.5. Ideally we want to be better than average if we can. Thus the best ratio would be 2 or 3, or less than 4.
Some clinicians use the ratio of total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol to help identify people who need cholesterol-lowering therapy. As a general rule of thumb, the lower the ratio, the better. To determine your ratio, simply divide total cholesterol by HDL cholesterol.