PFLPhysiological Fitness Landscape

HDL × total cholesterol: risk of death across both

Very high HDL is not protective here: at total cholesterol 200, risk of death is 1.3× at HDL 90 against 1.0× at HDL 50. Higher total cholesterol goes with lower risk when HDL is high, a pattern usually attributed to illness lowering cholesterol rather than cholesterol protecting.

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Sex
Age

Showing all US adults. Pick a group to see its own map; each group’s map is fitted separately.

Risk of death1.00× reference
HDL
50
Total cholesterol
193
Within data
yes

Drag the marker, or focus the map and use the arrow keys. Hold Shift for larger steps.

Risk of death relative to the reference, by contour band.
Cox model with restricted cubic splines and a HDL × Total cholesterol interaction (likelihood-ratio p = 3×10⁻⁵), adjusted for age and sex. NHANES 1999–2018 with linked mortality to 2019; 48,495 adults, 7,048 deaths (fitted surface). The path joins the average adult in each decade of age, and each oval holds the middle half of people that age (NHANES, unweighted). Different people at each age, so this is how the population differs by age, not one person's path. Population associations from US adults, not a personal risk estimate.
Plot your own results over time

Type the date and both values from each of two or more test reports. The map draws your path in date order, and the table compares each step with how much people of your age and sex usually change in a year. Values stay in this browser.

Population associations from US adults, not a personal risk estimate.

How to read the map

How to read it

Colour shows risk of death from any cause relative to the reference point. It comes from a Cox model fitted on 48,495 adults with 7,048 deaths (fitted surface). Each contour band is one step on the scale beside the map. Hatched areas hold too few people to estimate.

The read-out gives a 95% confidence interval at the marker: the range the data are consistent with. It reflects sampling uncertainty only, not model or confounding uncertainty. Show uncertainty fades the map, or swaps it for a map of interval width.

Try an intervention draws the average change one study measured in a marker as an arrow from the marker. The study's 95% interval shows as a faint bar or box at the arrowhead. It shows where that change would land on this map, not what the intervention would do for a person.

Up to three arrows can be chained, although effects from separate trials may not add. The interaction test asks whether the two markers combine differently from the sum of their separate effects (likelihood-ratio p = 3×10⁻⁵).

Use Copy link to this view to share the exact position you are looking at.

Biomarker pages: HDL Cholesterol · Total Cholesterol.