What to Do When High Cholesterol Runs in Your Family

Featured Experts:

  • Dr. Seth Shay Martin

Considering high cholesterol doesn't have any symptoms, it'due south not something that's ordinarily on people's radar. Fifty-fifty if it is, people often don't take it seriously — until they have a heart set on or stroke. And while nosotros tend to think of those events every bit happening to an older population, people under the historic period of 55 can likewise exist affected, specially if they were born with high cholesterol.

Adult and child hands holding a heart.

This condition is called familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). FH is an inherited disorder that makes it harder for your body to remove low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol from your claret. The upshot? From babyhood, cholesterol builds upward along the walls of your arteries and veins, narrowing the passageways and drastically increasing your risk of center attack or stroke at a very early age.

Who is well-nigh at risk for FH?

Familial hypercholesterolemia tin can bear on anyone whose family unit carries the genetic mutation. However, it's found more frequently in those who are of French Canadian, Ashkenazi Jewish, Lebanese or Afrikaner (a South African ethnic group) descent. The biggest problem with FH is that more than xc% of people who have it oasis't been diagnosed, which means y'all should pay careful attention to your family unit history,

Seth Martin, M.D., M.H.S., acquaintance professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University Schoolhouse of Medicine and director of the Avant-garde Lipid Disorders Center.

"If people in your family accept had heart attacks, needed stents or had bypass surgery earlier in life — before historic period 55 in men and before 65 in women — those are signals that in that location's something causing your family to be at higher take a chance for heart disease," he explains. "It could be familial hypercholesterolemia."

What are early signs of FH?

When you have FH, early detection of high cholesterol levels is key to getting the handling that can lower your take a chance of cardiovascular disease. In addition to family history of early cardiovascular bug, y'all may also observe lumps forming nether your skin.

These fat deposits are called xanthomas, and are particularly noticeable around tendons in the hands, knees, Achilles tendons and elbows, and under the skin around your eyes. Sometimes an ophthalmologist may spot signs of cholesterol deposits in your optics as well.

Whether or not y'all have obvious signs of high cholesterol, you lot should get checked if heart disease runs in your family. Talk to your family doctor about your concerns; a uncomplicated blood test is all information technology takes to run across if your cholesterol levels are in the healthy range. A high cholesterol level at a young historic period is a particular red flag that you may have FH. If your doctor suspects you have the status, you can undergo genetic testing to ostend the diagnosis.

Are there any treatments for high cholesterol levels caused past genetics?

Usually, the get-go line of treatment for high cholesterol is lifestyle modification, just if you have FH y'all'll need more avant-garde treatment. "It's always important to eat a low-fatty diet, practise and control your weight. Having a healthy lifestyle is crucial for heart health and for overall health," says Martin. "However, people with FH could eat an extremely depression-fat diet and nonetheless not be able to command their cholesterol because they're genetically unable to handle it. For them, cholesterol is going to build upward in the bloodstream regardless of what they swallow."

Fortunately, at that place are medications that can essentially lower LDL cholesterol levels. The most common treatment for FH is statin drug therapy. Statin drugs work by blocking an enzyme that produces cholesterol in the liver and increases your trunk's ability to remove cholesterol from the claret. They can lower your LDL cholesterol levels by fifty percent or more than. Statins take been safely used to reduce the take chances of middle affliction for 30 years and continue to be the number i pick when information technology comes to helping people with FH.

Other treatment options include medications that block cholesterol from existence absorbed from your intestines into your bloodstream, or drugs that block an enzyme chosen PCSK9, which reduces the amount of LDL cholesterol in your blood.

In the virtually severe FH cases — typically when y'all inherited the FH genetic trait from both parents — LDL apheresis may be used equally well. During this procedure, your blood is run through a machine that removes bad cholesterol and returns the "cleaned" claret to your body. This is done multiple times a month to keep your cholesterol levels in check.

Can I laissez passer FH to my kids?

If you inherited FH from 1 parent, there'south a 50% adventure yous'll pass information technology on to your children. If both of your parents passed the FH trait to yous, your children will definitely accept FH. That's why it'due south crucial to get children with a family history tested at an early age and brainstorm cholesterol-reducing treatment for those with FH.

"People with FH are usually not diagnosed until their 30s or 40s or later. Unfortunately, far too few are diagnosed as children. But early treatment can significantly impact a person's lifetime cardiovascular wellness past lowering their long-term exposure to high cholesterol levels," Martin advises. "The treatment keeps their arteries healthier and prevents premature heart attacks and strokes."