Help interpreting cholesterol results?

[Tothemoons]

I recently had a cholesterol test as part of the Our Future Health study and I'm a bit perplexed! If anyone can shed any light that'd be amazing. My results were:
Total cholesterol 5.4
HDL 2
Triglycerides 1.1
LDL 2.9

From internet searches it seems my total cholesterol is a bit high, but that the cause is high HDL, ie the opposite to normal. I can't get much sense out of the internet about how much if a problem this is, and what to do about it if so! If I enter my details on the BHF calculator it tells me my heart age is 5 years younger than my chronological age. But OTOH I see nowhere saying 'oh don't worry about cholesterol at 5.5!'

I'm pretty healthy - late 40s, bmi 20.5, exercise regularly and eat (slightly obsessively) healthily (30+ plant types a week, low carb, no processed food type thing). Not much to give, in other words. My dad has heart disease but only diagnosed in his late 70s, no other family history.

Ideally I'd discuss with the GP, but I haven't yet found the time or energy to ring the requisite 347 times at 8am, 3 days in a row...

It’s fine.
HDL is an issue above 2.5, above 2.3 they’d be advising lifestyle changes but 2 is okay.
Total cholesterol is also fine, as long as the ratio between total & HDL is below 4.5 it’s considered low risk so TC can be above 5 these days.

This is when it’s considered high risk.
If your total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol are high
If your total cholesterol is over 7.5mmol, with HDL over 2.5mmol, then your doctor should base their treatment decision mainly on your LDL cholesterol (and other non HDL-cholesterol).
https://www.heartuk.org.uk/genetic-conditions/high-hdl-cholesterol

Oh thank you so much @TomatoSoupIsLikeVampiresBlood, that's really helpful and reassuring. It's a problem when you take part in these big studies that promise to give you information about your general health, but then just spit out some numbers and let you get on with it!

Presuming that you've never had any heart problems, or anything to suggest a blocked blood vessel (stroke etc), then you're looking at primary prevention of cardiocascular disease when you talk about cholesterol levels.

There is no set cut-off point for "good" or "bad" with primary prevention (within reason! If your cholest was 30, then obviously that would need sorting!)

Your GP would use a programme called QRISK3 to assess the risk associated with your cholesterol level. This takes into account lots of other factors which also affect your risk - age, sex, family history, ethnicity plus others. The NHS advice is then to discuss treatment if your risk level is more than 10% -- that's a risk of a "cardiovascular event" (heart attack, stroke), over the next 10 years.

Most women in their 40s in the UK are pretty low risk.

You can input your details into the QRISK3 calculator online, and you'll probably be reassured by the results:

https://qrisk.org/

@mauvish that is super helpful, thank you, and that calculator is indeed very reassuring - comes back as 1%. Ironically cholesterol hadn't been on my radar at all until this recent test. Thank you both for taking the time to write such detailed replies!

Marking place as due tests tomorrow