According to the China Cardiovascular Disease Report, there are at least 200 million dyslipidemia patients in China, and dyslipidemia is the most important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, heart attack and ischemic stroke. Because of the absence of symptoms, dyslipidemia is often called the “silent killer”, and many patients come to the doctor only after they have symptoms of coronary heart disease. So what is hyperlipidemia and do you know the dangers of hyperlipidemia? Hyperlipidemia is the general term for the lipids in the blood, mainly including cholesterol and triglycerides. Many elderly people think that hyperlipidemia means thick blood or high triglycerides in the blood, but this understanding is incorrect. Cholesterol is mainly divided into HDL-C and LDL-C. HDL-C has a protective effect on the cardiovascular system and is the “good cholesterol”; LDL-C is attached to the blood vessel wall and once it is excessive, it will lead to atherosclerosis and then cause cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It is called “bad cholesterol”. There is no unified method for the diagnosis of hyperlipidemia in China and internationally. According to the criteria of the 2007 China Adult Dyslipidemia Guidelines, the LDL-C treatment target is 2.6 mmol/L; if the patient has already suffered from atherosclerotic diseases such as coronary heart disease or stroke, LDL should preferably be reduced to below 1.8 mmol/L. The ideal triglyceride level should be less than 1.70mmol/L. Many hospital labs will indicate the normal range of each lipid index, but the so-called normal range is based on the lipid target of healthy people as a reference. Patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases may instead miss the initiation of lipid therapy because of the normal range of lipid labs. The appropriate plasma cholesterol level should be determined by the patient’s risk of future cardiovascular disease; the higher the risk of occurrence, the lower the cholesterol level should be. To manage cholesterol, a healthy lifestyle and aggressive scientific use of medication are critical. First, cholesterol should be actively checked. men over the age of 40 and postmenopausal women need to have their blood lipids tested annually, and over the age of 20, fasting lipids should be measured at least every 5 years. For ischemic cardiovascular disease and other high-risk groups (hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke), it is even more important to measure lipids every 3-6 months.