{"id":8005,"date":"2020-02-24T11:33:51","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T11:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zoeharcombe.com\/?p=8005"},"modified":"2020-02-23T20:01:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T20:01:32","slug":"the-british-heart-foundation-and-familial-hypercholesterolemia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoeharcombe.com\/2020\/02\/the-british-heart-foundation-and-familial-hypercholesterolemia\/","title":{"rendered":"The British Heart Foundation and Familial Hypercholesterolemia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Executive summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\nIntroduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the pleasure of hearing Dr David Diamond present three times in the past year. I have found the most thought provoking parts of his presentations to be on Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH). At a conference in California on February 2nd, 2020, David reiterated some important, and little known, facts about FH. He also used a quotation about FH with which I am familiar. It comes from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and it says: \u201cIf you don\u2019t have treatment, 1 in 2 men and nearly 1 in 3 women with FH will develop coronary heart disease by the age of 55<\/em>\u201d (Ref 1).<\/p>\n

Hearing David use this quotation reminded me that I had exchanged emails with the BHF about this statement back in February 2018. I checked the BHF literature when I got home, and their errors\/falsehoods \u2013 not sure what to call this \u2013 have still not been corrected. I\u2019ll report the exchange in full later in this note. First, let\u2019s remind ourselves of what FH is and what the evidence is for the risk with which it is associated.<\/p>\n

Familial Hypercholesterolemia<\/strong><\/p>\n

FH is a genetic condition caused by a gene defect on chromosome 19. The defect impairs the body\u2019s ability to remove low density lipoproteins (LDL) from the blood stream, resulting in consistently high levels of LDL (and thus the cholesterol contained therein). There are two types of FH: Heterozygous FH is found in approximately 1 in 500 people; Homozygous FH is even rarer, occurring in approximately 1 in a million births (Ref 2).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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