My former cardiologist created the Agosten aka
Calcium Score. Dr. Agosten stressed two things with me that apply here; cholesterol molecule size and stickiness (large, fluffy, non-sticky won't clump and adsorbs and sweeps up some of the little sticky stuff) and one can increase HDL with exercise.

Since so much of this is genetic, there are likely limits to how much one can increase HDL or large-molecule size but small changes can yield large results. Kind of analogous to compounding interest over time.