Why is Cholesterol Calculation so confusing?

I was confused when I found out how Total Cholesterol is calculated. Total Cholesterol = HDL + LDL + (Triglycerides/5)

And they say Total Cholesterol should be lower than 200. The problem is that they also say that HDL should be higher than 40. Isn't this conflicting?

For eg.

[INDENT]Person A (HDL=30 , LDL=130 , Triglycerides=150) So Total = 190

Person B (HDL=50 , LDL=130 , Triglycerides=150) So Total = 210

So even if the Total Cholesterol of Person B is higher, he's in a much better shape as all three HDL, LDL, Triglycerides are in range[/INDENT]

Re: Why is Cholesterol Calculation so confusing?

Its not really conflicting because HDL is your "good" cholesterol which helps counteract the "bad" LDL cholesterol so keeping your LDL, HDL and trigs in range individually and having a good ratio is more important than the total