If you have high cholesterol (a total cholesterol level of 240 milligrams per deciliter of blood or above), taking steps to lower it can greatly reduce your chances of having a heart attack. For every 10% drop in your cholesterol level, your heart attack risk falls by 20% to 30%.

Controlling your high blood pressure and high cholesterol may cut your risk for heart disease by half or more, yet fewer than one in three people are doing it, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

Retailer CVS was in the news Tuesday for requiring that all of its 200,000 employees who participate in the company’s health-insurance plan get a health screening (paid for by CVS) that assesses their weight, height, body fat and cholesterol levels-or pay some $600 more for their health coverage a year.

Worried about your cholesterol? New health research finds that the benefits of diet and exercise may go beyond weight loss and muscle tone improvement. Working out may actually help raise the production of “good” cholesterol.

Taking vitamin D supplements to compensate for vitamin D deficiency didn’t improve cholesterol  — at least in the short term, according to new research in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, an American Heart Association journal.