You've probably heard your doctor talk about good and bad cholesterol.

To help avoid those problems, you need to maintain the proper ratio between good and total cholesterol.

"If hot flashes really are associated with higher levels of both good and bad cholesterol, I have no idea what that means," she says.

The outlook here was also far from healthy; I had five times as much bad to good cholesterol.

They were also more likely to have low levels of good cholesterol and increased triglycerides.

But there's a nasty side effect: they lower the body's good cholesterol while increasing the bad.

They also lower the good cholesterol in your blood.

C8 High "good" cholesterol tied to lower heart risks in the elderly.

In other words, the more aerobic exercise one does, the higher good cholesterol is likely to be.

A third of women in all three age groups have low levels of good cholesterol.