Pregnant women who have very low cholesterol may face a greater risk of delivering their babies prematurely than women with more moderate cholesterol levels, a team led by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reported today.

Children could have their cholesterol levels tested at about 15 months of age to prevent heart disease later in life, say doctors in a study published on bmj.com today.

Millions of Americans take statins to lower their cholesterol, but how low should you go" Many scientific studies support the benefits of lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and achieving low LDL cholesterol levels is one of the most important steps in preventing heart disease.

Scientists have shown for the first time that a protein involved in the transfer of fat in the blood may also influence how fat cells store fat. Richard E. Morton and Lahoucine Izem, research scientists at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, have shown that the protein, called cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), is involved in the cellular storage and regulation of cholesterol and other fats and, as a result, probably has unexpected contributions to obesity and diabetes.

Abdominal fat, the spare tire that many of us carry, has long been implicated as a primary suspect in causing the metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that includes the most dangerous heart attack risk factors: prediabetes, diabetes, high blood pressure, and changes in cholesterol.

Family doctors don’t always feel that they can achieve healthy cholesterol levels in their patients even though they are aware of the dangers of cardiovascular disease, according to an international survey of practitioners published in the July issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

People who have high cholesterol levels may be much more susceptible to a particular disease transmitted by the bites of ticks, a new study in mice suggests.

A study of 40 overweight children in Edmonton has revealed they all share something in common aside from being heavy: each one of them has high levels of apoB48, a structural protein found in intestinal cholesterol.

Regular exercise appears to modestly increase levels of high-density lipoprotein, or "good," cholesterol, according to a meta-analysis study in the May 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.