How do you make your HDL cholesterol levels go up?

I am 21 and my total cholesterol is 139 but I am worried because me doctor said my HDL (the good kind) is a little low. What foods or herbal remedies are good for lowering cholesterol? I know grapefruit is good and exercise.

and i think my wellness teacher in college said that my cholesterol at my age should be like 116 or lower. is that true?

they like your bad cholesterol to be lower and lower so eat wild fish not farm raised fish take flax oil capsules and salmon oil capsules and get lots of exercise eat as much organic food as possible. drink lots of water and lose weight.

The only real way you can increase you HDL (good cholesterol) is with exercise.
Herbal remedies can interact with other medications so make sure you check with your pharmacist before starting any herbal products.
Omega-3 supplements can also help improve your cholesterol profile.
Hope this helps!

Exercise,and, rousovastatin and atorvastatin are amongst helpful measures.

Good cholesterol, Bad cholesterol, blah, blah, blah,

In simple terms
LDL or 'bad' cholesterol is a lipoprotein that delivers cholesterol from your liver to cells within the body. You need cholesterol for all manner of things
HDL or 'good' cholesterol is a lipoprotein that takes 'used cholesterol from cells back to the liver.

How one is good or bad is beyond me. They both provide a vital service, without which we just could not function as the complex organism that we are..

The most effective way to increase HDL is to exercise, something that also plays a big part in CHD prevention.

If you want to use diet alone, then here's a big shock for anyone listening to official dietary advice;

A study comparing four different diets found, amongst other things, that those on the Atkins diet had the better HDL levels
"HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels improved significantly in the Atkins group compared with other groups"

http://womens-health.jwatch.org/cgi/cont...

So despite all the propaganda we are fed, a diet low in carbs and high in fat and protein increases HDL.

Hmm, lets put this all together.
Supposedly higher levels of HDL lessen our chances of heart attack.

The official dietary guidelines recommend against a diet that has been shown to increase HDL

We have heart disease rates that are increasing at an alarming rate.

The only outcomes of measuring blood cholesterol levels are stress and confusion. This testing will ultimately lead to a lifetime on statins.