Day 10: Family Ties - Genetic Cholesterol Disorders - Doctor Warrick Bishop | Heart Attacks Are Preventable!

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Day 10: Family Ties - Genetic Cholesterol Disorders

Host:

Doctor Warrick

4 Oct. 2025

Played 572 times

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Cholesterol

Welcome to the Younger Longer 14-Day Cholesterol Challenge. My name is Dr. Warrick Bishop. I'm a preventative cardiologist and I'm super excited that you're looking to look after your cholesterol. It is one of the most important and really one of the simplest things you can look after to look after your heart for the rest of your life.

During this 14-Day Challenge, I'm going to share with you a whole lot of stuff. Every day, a video, some resources, a challenge or a task for you to complete and a fun fact. Stay tuned, your cholesterol is super important. Let me explain to you how, what you're going to do about it and how you're going to look after yourself for the years ahead!

Why Listen?

Get practical tips and science-backed advice you can apply immediately.
Learn from real-world examples and medical expertise.
Gain daily challenges to help you stay engaged and track progress.
Take charge of your heart health in a simple, effective, and engaging way.

Takeaways:

Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) basics and LP A
Why early diagnosis saves lives
Cascade screening: protect your whole family
Fun Fact: FH affects about 1 in 250 Australians—most are undiagnosed.
Daily Task: Talk to a sibling or parent about their cholesterol history.
Resource: https://fhaustralia.org.au/

Transcript:

Are You at Risk of a Sudden Heart Attack? How Healthy is Your Heart? Really?

Heart disease is the #1 killer in the Western World. In Australia, someone dies every 28 minutes from heart disease. That’s 51 people a day. In the US, someone has a heart attack every 40 SECONDS! Fortunately, many heart attacks are preventable. However, regular exercise and eating healthy are no guarantee you won’t succumb to this silent killer.

94% of Australians have at least One Risk Factor for heart disease.
59% of Australians have been Touched by heart disease.
Yet only 3% of Australians have had a Full Heart-Health Assessment in the past 12 months.

Do the free heart check today at www.virtualheartcheck.com.au

Join the Healthy Heart Network and become part of our growing community!

Do You Want to Improve Your Heart’s Health and Reduce Your Risk of Suffering a Heart Attack? Join The Healthy Heart Network For Only $5 Lifetime Access (Valued at over $55)!

The Healthy Heart Network is designed to help members:

understand the present state of their heart’s health
recognise their current level of risk of suffering a heart attack
Learn the positive steps they can take to improve their situation

Visit https://healthyheartnetwork.com/ and click on the JOIN THE FAMILY BUTTON

Transcript English

**Episode Title: "Day 10: Family Ties - Genetic Cholesterol Disorders"** **Speaker 1:** Well, here we are, we're talking family, and you know the old saying, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. Well, it's true when it comes to cholesterol. What I want to talk about is a condition called familial hypercholesterolemia. "Familial" means within families, "hyper" refers to increased cholesterol—the stuff that we're talking about—and "emia" just means in the blood. So, familial hypercholesterolemia means high cholesterol in the blood within families. Well, this is a genetic condition, and we're talking really very high levels of cholesterol—so high that these people have premature coronary artery disease and can miss out on up to several decades of meaningful life because of premature events. Why is this so important? Well, it occurs frequently. It occurs at a rate of about one in 250 within Western communities. If you were to be in a coronary care unit where people had had a heart attack and were being managed and cared for, then the rate of familial hypercholesterolemia in that group is about 1 in 10. So, you get a gist for how important this is. From my perspective as a preventive cardiologist, and from your perspective if you may be at risk of it, it's critical to identify people with this condition as early as possible because with the right cholesterol lowering, we can give people back normal life expectancy. What's that worth? Our money can't buy it. Familial hypercholesterolemia—the other genetics that I want you to be aware of is we've talked about lipoprotein A (LPA) before. This is also within families, also inherited, and also can lead, when it's high, to premature coronary artery disease. So, if coronary artery disease is in your family, please talk about it. Please be proactive. Please make inquiries as to what sort of testing should be done to check what's going on for you because with the right therapy, you can live a normal life. Please lock into the podcast on this because I really want to give you information so that you can do more for you or someone you care for. If you think you're at risk of having either of these conditions—familial hypercholesterolemia or raised Lp(a)—I am going to wish you the very best. I do hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Stay tuned because we're going to talk about other sorts of fancy testing for your cholesterol.