Q: What should be the normal ratio of serum total cholesterol/LDL in a case of dyslipidemia? How significant is it compared to serum total cholesterol/HDL? Please mention other significant ratios involved in the evaluation of dyslipidimia?

A:The ususal method of calculating the risk of atherosclerosis is calculating the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol which can be obtained by dividing total cholesterol by HDL cholesterol. The optimum level of this should be <3.5:1. Another ratio which is of importance is LDL to HDL ratio. Ideally it should be <3.0:1.