By The Pawline veterinary teamVeterinary-reviewed by Alastair Greenway, BVM&S MRCVS · 25 July 2026
Reference range · mg/dL
110320
Reference
110–320
Direction
Both unusually high and low values carry meaning.
This is the conventional reference interval. Your pet’s own report may print a slightly different range — always read the value against that. Sign in to see your pet’s value on this strip.
Unlike in people, cholesterol in dogs and cats is read mainly as a clue to hormonal and metabolic conditions — thyroid disease, Cushing's, diabetes — rather than as a heart-attack risk. So a high cholesterol is a prompt to look at the endocrine system, not the arteries.
The first thing to unlearn about pet cholesterol is the human framing. Dogs and cats do not develop the cholesterol-driven coronary artery disease that makes the number so charged in people; they very rarely have heart attacks of that kind. Instead, cholesterol earns its place on the panel as a sensitive marker of underlying hormonal and metabolic conditions — a signpost pointing at other diseases rather than a risk score in its own right.
In pets, cholesterol is read as a clue to hormonal and metabolic conditions — thyroid disease, Cushing's, diabetes — not as heart-attack risk.
Read this way, a cholesterol result is most useful for the company it keeps and the conditions it hints at.
Reading a high result
A high cholesterol (hypercholesterolaemia) is common and its value is as a clue. Frequent causes:
A recent meal — the single commonest reason, which is why a fasted sample matters.
Hypothyroidism (dogs) — an underactive thyroid classically raises cholesterol, so a high value supports investigating the thyroid.
Cushing's disease (hyperadrenocorticism) and diabetes mellitus — both commonly raise cholesterol.
Cholestatic liver disease, protein-losing kidney disease, and certain breed-associated fat disorders.
So a persistently high cholesterol on a fasted sample is a prompt to look at the endocrine and metabolic systems — thyroid, adrenal, glucose — rather than a finding to treat directly. It is the pattern (high cholesterol with a low T4, or with a high glucose) that turns the clue into a direction.
Reading a low result
A low cholesterol is less common and can accompany significant liver disease or a portosystemic shunt (the liver makes and processes cholesterol), protein-losing gut disease, or an overactive thyroid in cats. Like the high value, it is read as a pointer towards a system to investigate rather than a problem in itself.
In chronic disease
Cholesterol is useful for supporting and monitoring the endocrine conditions it flags. A cholesterol that falls back to normal as a hypothyroid dog is treated, or as a diabetic's control improves, is a small piece of reassuring feedback that the underlying condition is responding. Tracked alongside the primary markers, it adds context to the trajectory of metabolic and hormonal disease.
Cat vs dog
The interpretation is broadly the same in both species, with the endocrine associations shifting: in dogs, high cholesterol leans towards hypothyroidism and Cushing's; in cats, hyperthyroidism tends to lower cholesterol, and diabetes and cholestatic disease can raise it. In both, the guiding principle is identical — cholesterol is a metabolic and hormonal clue, not a cardiovascular risk number.
How it's measured
Cholesterol is measured on a routine chemistry panel, in mg/dL (US) or mmol/L (UK/SI). A fasted sample (ideally 12 hours) is important, because a recent fatty meal is the commonest cause of a high reading and can obscure the real signal. It is interpreted alongside triglycerides and the endocrine markers it points towards.
What to do next
A high cholesterol on a fasted pet is a reason to look one level deeper with your vet — at the thyroid, adrenal glands and glucose — rather than to worry about the arteries. If those screens are clear and the pet is well, a mild elevation may simply be constitutional or breed-related; if they reveal an endocrine condition, the cholesterol becomes one more number to watch as that condition is treated.
Reference ranges reflect conventional laboratory intervals. Always interpret against your own lab's printed range and your veterinary surgeon's judgement. A brighter optimal band is shown only where a published guideline defines one, and it is cited.
This page is educational and is not a diagnosis. Lab results are interpreted in the full clinical context by your veterinary surgeon; a single value rarely tells the whole story.
