The cholesterol test isn't very helpful to low carbers. When your triglycerides go down your LDL particles get bigger, which is good. Those particles are harmless. It's the small LDL that causes plaque. But the Friedewalde calculation calculates your LDL from it's volume, it doesn't count the particles. So really, your LDL count has actually probably gone down, but the simple cholesterol test used by doctors won't actually show that. Just remember that having low triglycerides means your LDL score will be wrong (to the high side).

On the other hand, having high triglycerides you can actually have a much higher LDL count than is reflected in that test.

So the end result is, the test is pretty much worthless. If you REALLY want to know your risk, get an NMR cholesterol test.

Read this for more info (Just added a link on there showing that LARGE ldl is linked to living a really long time)