Question 1

What should my cholesterol be?

Accepted Answer

It depends on total risk, not the number alone: for a healthy adult the ESC guideline target is LDL under 3.0 mmol/L (116 mg/dL); with diabetes or established disease it is under 1.4 (55). The risk calculation comes before the target.

Question 2

Do statins cause muscle pain?

Accepted Answer

In trials the excess was small — on the order of one person in fifty — and in practice most people who get aches find a dose, drug or timing that works. The benefit side: roughly a fifth fewer major vascular events per 1 mmol/L of LDL lowered.

Question 3

What blood pressure is too high?

Accepted Answer

The ESC categories: normal is 120-129/80-84, high-normal 130-139/85-89, and hypertension from 140/90. One high reading is not hypertension — it is a reason to measure properly and repeatedly.

Question 4

Is this page medical advice?

Accepted Answer

No. It is a reference to the ESC guidelines and Cochrane evidence. Risk assessment, targets and treatment decisions belong to you and your clinician.

Topic	In one line
Cholesterol: LDL, HDL and the targets	The numbers on the lipid panel, and which one actually drives risk.
Statins: what the evidence says	The most-studied preventive drugs in medicine, and the muscle-ache question.
Blood pressure: the number and what to do	The single most treatable risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
Exercise for the heart	The dose and the kind that actually reduce risk.
Salt: the hidden lever	The cheapest blood-pressure intervention in the diet.
Alcohol and the heart	The J-curve is mostly an artefact; the honest relationship is a line.
The Nordic diet	The local version of the Mediterranean idea, with trials behind it.
Stress and the heart	The real pathways — and which "stress" claims are not them.

Heart health: the numbers and the levers

How the topics fit together

About the numbers