I got a really bad Cholesterol diagnosis a couple years ago despite being 33-34 years old at the time, low body fat, not at all overweight and also being vegeta

I got a really bad Cholesterol diagnosis a couple years ago despite being 33-34 years old at the time, low body fat, not at all overweight and also being vegetarian (almost, ate/eat some fish). Bad genes, it seems. Despite the talk about ingested cholesterol not being the "real threat" for having high cholesterol, I cut it out of my diet entirely.. which essentially meant dropping cheese and dairy. I also started taking Red Rice Yeast and Fish Oil, and modestly increased my exercise [I was already a fairly active person.. for a software developer :) ] A year later I'd dropped LDL from 181 (I know) to 118, and raised HDL from 43 to 69. I'd loved to have made all of the changes independently so I'd have a better idea which variables contributed what but I didn't feel like I had time not to try everything I could (really wanted to avoid a statin Rx, which I managed to).