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What percentage of American adults have high cholesterol when their blood is actually tested?

10.5% of American adults have high cholesterol when their blood is actually tested — about 11 in every 100, or 1 in 10. That is the figure published by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2018.

Where this number comes from

Survey

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

What it measured

Measured prevalence of high total cholesterol in the NHANES 2017-2018 examination -- taken by an examiner rather than asked. The interval is derived here as the published estimate plus or minus 1.96 standard errors.

Population

U.S. adults aged 20 and over

Year

2018

95% confidence interval

8.93% to 12.07% (derived from the published standard error)

Work of the U.S. federal government - public domain. See the source data

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