Your numbers

What's a normal cholesterol level for my age?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 15, 20265 sources

Your goal doesn’t change with age. LDL under 100 mg/dL, 70 or 55 depending on your risk, at 25 or at 65. What changes with age is how common a high number is: 6% of Americans in their 20s and 30s have a total of 240 or more, 16.7% in their 40s and 50s, and after 60 women overtake men almost three to one.

Why people look for an age chart

Most charts online list a “normal” range for each decade, and a lot of people search for one to see if they’re doing all right. But a chart of what’s common only shows what most people have. A high number that’s common at your age still raises your risk, the same as it would for anyone.

The 2026 US guideline gives no age table. It sets the same LDL and non-HDL goals for every adult, and your risk, which does rise with age, decides which goal is yours.

Who has a high total cholesterol

The numbers come from NHANES, the CDC survey that draws blood from a sample of Americans, for August 2021 to August 2023. Overall, 11.3% of adults 20 and over had a total of 240 or more. That’s down from about 18% around 2000, and it has barely moved since 2014.

Men’s numbers peak in their 40s and 50s, at 18.3%, and drop to 5.6% after 60. Women’s climb the whole way, from 4.7% in their 20s and 30s to 16.4% after 60. The data brief doesn’t say why the men’s number falls.

Why it rises in your 20s, 30s and 40s

LDL and non-HDL climb an average of 1 to 2 mg/dL a year in young adulthood, the guideline says. Nobody feels it, since high cholesterol has no symptoms, so the guideline asks for a first test at 19 and another at least every 5 years. Children get one test between 9 and 11.

Women get an extra step at menopause. In the SWAN study of 1,054 women, total cholesterol, LDL and ApoB jumped in the year either side of the last period, while other risk factors rose slowly with age. Why does cholesterol go up after menopause?

Why age doesn’t earn you a higher goal

A high LDL at 30 has more years to add up than the same number at 60. In a 2012 analysis of 312,321 people, LDL held 39 points lower from early life went with about 55% less coronary heart disease, three times what the same drop gave when a statin started in middle age. Am I too young to worry about cholesterol?

HDL by age

Low HDL (under 40) is more common in men at every age, 21.5% against 6.6% of women, and it gets less common as people get older. HDL has no goal in the 2026 guideline, and how to raise HDL explains why pushing it up hasn’t helped.

Is my cholesterol bad? puts your own panel against your goal, whatever your age.