The trouble with “good cholesterol”

Peter Attia · 27 Jun 2026

Peter Attia did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Raising HDL cholesterol is not a treatment target, because every drug that raised it failed to reduce cardiovascular events.

Their wordsThese failures are a strong signal that HDL-C is not the variable we should be trying to manipulate.
Our reading
The phrase "good cholesterol" should be retired: a high HDL-C number is not a free pass on cardiovascular risk.

Their wordsHigh HDL-C is not a free pass.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.