Where your DNA places you among other people, and the studies behind it.
Not tailored to your result, and not medical advice
More importantly, exercise improves overall cardiometabolic health well beyond its effect on HDL. Aim for 150+ minutes/week of moderate-intensity cardio such as brisk walking, running, swimming, or cycling. Archives of Internal Medicine (Kodama meta-analysis)
Choose Healthy Dietary Fats: Cut trans fats and replace some saturated fat with monounsaturated (olive oil, avocado) and polyunsaturated (nuts, fish) fats. This improves the overall lipid profile and is linked to better cardiovascular outcomes. The Mediterranean dietary pattern is a well-studied way to support healthy lipids. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Quit Smoking: Smoking lowers HDL and damages HDL particle function. Biomarker Research (Forey et al. review)
Maintain a Healthy Weight: Excess visceral fat is associated with lower HDL and a less favorable lipid profile. Weight loss tends to raise HDL gradually and, combined with exercise, improves the whole cardiometabolic picture. Focus on sustainable diet and activity changes rather than chasing a target HDL number. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Don't Chase the HDL Number in Isolation: Genetic and drug-trial evidence shows that raising HDL on its own does not reliably reduce heart attacks - CETP inhibitors raised HDL but failed to cut cardiovascular events. Use HDL as one signal of overall metabolic health and prioritise the established levers: not smoking, regular activity, healthy weight, blood pressure, and lowering LDL where indicated. Journal of the American College of Cardiology (CETP review)
How much of this is genetic?
Genetics explains 50% of why people differ in this trait. The rest is environment, daily habits and chance.
Heritability estimate: Weissglas-Volkov 2010, J Lipid Res
Background and further reading
HDL cholesterol is a lipoprotein that carries cholesterol from peripheral tissues back to the liver for excretion - a process called reverse cholesterol transport. In observational studies, higher HDL tracks with lower cardiovascular risk, which is why it is often called 'good' cholesterol. HDL is best read as a marker of cardiometabolic health rather than a dial to be pushed as high as possible.
Genetic Basis: HDL cholesterol is strongly heritable, with twin and family studies placing heritability around 40-60% [3]. Well-established determinants include CETP (cholesteryl ester transfer protein), LIPC and LIPG (hepatic and endothelial lipase), APOA1 (apolipoprotein A-I, the main structural protein of HDL), and ABCA1 (critical for HDL assembly) [3]. The Global Lipids Genetics Consortium, drawing on more than 1.6 million people across diverse ancestries, mapped 923 loci influencing blood lipids, many of them shaping HDL [4]. Crucially, genetics has reshaped how HDL is interpreted: a Mendelian-randomization study found that variants which raise HDL - including an endothelial-lipase (LIPG) variant and a 14-SNP HDL score - did not lower the risk of heart attack, unlike LDL-raising variants [5]. This argues that HDL is largely a marker of, rather than a direct cause of, cardiovascular protection.
Modifiable Factors: HDL responds to lifestyle, though the changes are usually modest. Weight loss, replacing trans fats with unsaturated fats, and more dietary fiber all nudge HDL upward, while sedentary behavior and ultra-processed diets lower it. The drug story is a cautionary note: CETP inhibitors such as torcetrapib, dalcetrapib and evacetrapib raised HDL substantially yet failed to cut cardiovascular events, reinforcing that the broader benefit comes from the underlying healthy behaviors rather than from the HDL number itself [8].
The published research behind your score, and the variants it draws on.
58 published scores from 12 studies
The HDL cholesterol score combines 58 polygenic scores drawn from 12 published studies.
Grundy SM, et al. 2018 AHA/ACC Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol. Circulation (2019)
Tall AR, Rader DJ. The Trials and Tribulations of CETP Inhibitors. Circulation Research (2017)
These traits are influenced by some of the same genes and variants as this one
Content updated August 2026.
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