Quote from jacal5:

I researched my question more thoroughly and found that optimal total cholesterol levels should be around 200. Low total cholesterol levels like 140 may increase the risk of stroke.
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It is always helpful to post the source of your research so others may also look it up.

Here is an interesting report on the subject:

[quote]
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Do Not Increase Risk of Stroke

New York (MedscapeWire) Oct 4 — People with high cholesterol who are receiving lipid-lowering drugs are not at an increased risk of stroke, according to a new study presented at the American Neurological Association's 126th annual meeting in Chicago.

While many people take statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs to decrease their risks of heart attack and stroke, there has been some concern that lowering one's cholesterol too much may actually increase the risk of one particularly lethal form of stroke.

It's known that low cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). ICH accounts for only 10%-15% of all strokes, but it causes death in 40%-50% of those who have one.

Until now, no one has shown whether lowering one's cholesterol levels with medication would increase the risk of a brain hemorrhage. "What we found was the exact opposite: Patients [who were on cholesterol-lowering drugs], in fact, had less risk of having the ICH," says lead researcher Daniel Woo, MD, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Cincinnati, in Ohio.

Woo and colleagues studied the medication history of 190 patients with ICH and compared them with 370 control subjects who did not have this type of stroke.

"Whatever causes a patient to have low cholesterol is probably what gives him the increased risk of hemorrhage," says Woo. "The use of cholesterol-lowering drugs does not give you the increased risk of ICH that someone with normal or low cholesterol has."

Ralph Sacco, MD, a spokesperson for the American Stroke Association, says that the findings are encouraging in that they offer additional support for the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

"There is a small perceived fear in the past that lipid-lowering drugs may increase the risk of a brain hemorrhage," says Sacco, associate chairman of neurology at Columbia University in New York City. "But this study provides reassurance that these drugs are safe and do not raise the risk of any kind of stroke."

Another:

[QUOTE]Beneficial in Stroke Prevention too?
Recent evidence suggests that HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors may reduce stroke risk despite the lack of a clear association between serum cholesterol levels and stroke.[1] This discrepancy is as yet unexplained. A 31% risk reduction in nonfatal strokes was seen in patients treated with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors compared with patients not receiving this treatment, in a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.[16] Pravastatin reduced fatal and nonfatal strokes by 20 to 30% compared with placebo in 2 clinical trials.[12,13] However, no treatment effect was seen with regard to fatal strokes. This may be because of differences in the pathophysiology of these 2 types of stroke.[1]