I dug into this when my primary care physician suggested statins. In retrospect, even though I had moderately low HDLs, the algorithm they use is weighted about 90-95% age and gender and he brought it up when I turned 64 (but I've only recently dug into that algorithm).

That said, at the time, I was a pescatarian, had been for 30+ years. Added animal fats (chicken) into my diet, and HDL came up. Apologies if you're vegetarian / vegan.

Also, I started taking niacin a year after that. Dug into how it works (metabolic pathways, etc.). Plan to switch to NR once I use up my current (huge) bottle of instant-release niacin. As it is, I'm taking methyl donors (phosphatidyl choline and glycine) alongside. Probably TMI.

IMO the jury is out on LDL and CVD because it appears to be an issue with both particle size and number and how those interplay with arterial elasticity (higher momentary pressure).

And finally (a sore point for me) statin producers seem to be trying to 'cheat'. They show relative risk reduction (looks higher) but absolute side-effect risk (looks lower). On top of that, even if they show CVD risk reduction, they don't change mortality