Nick NorwitzMD PhD, Oxford-Harvard | Metabolic Health Educator | “Stay Curious”

My Cholesterol Is Over 700... But My Arteries Are Clean

16 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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1:04

In a brief interview, a patient (Speaker A) reveals an extraordinarily high total cholesterol level (>700 mg/dL) yet reports having pristine coronary arteries confirmed by a CT scan. The speaker emphasizes that this testimony is not meant to deny the risks of high LDL cholesterol, but to illustrate the complexity and uncertainty patients face when making medical decisions with incomplete information. They criticize the prevailing “lower cholesterol is always better” mantra and one-size-fits-all prescription approaches, arguing that such platitudes ignore individual variability. The speaker calls for more research, personalized treatment strategies, and a more curious, nuanced dialogue between clinicians and patients to navigate the gray zones of modern medicine.

My cholesterol is so high most doctors think I should be dead. But I'm not.
Were you killed? Sadly, yes. But I lived.
I'm totally fine. And my arteries are as clean as a whistle. But don't take my word for it, here's my latest lipid panel with a total cholesterol over 700 and a CT image of my pristine coronary vessels. But here's the point. I am not sharing this to be the mascot of some LDL denial counterculture. And I'm not certain I'll be healthy until 120. It's the opposite. Like many patients, I agonize every day over tough medical choices made with imperfect and incomplete information. That's the art of medicine, weighing risks and making decisions in the gray. And it pisses me off, sorry, but it does, when platitudes replace patients. Statements like, "Lower cholesterol is always better, here's a pill." That one-size-fits-all approach is failing us. What we need is more research, more personalization, and more curiosity.