Question: There are other ways to reduce your cholestoral, e.g. diet. What is so special about your research and what it will lead to?

Olivia Hibbitt answered on 18 Mar 2010:

Hi Amy3,

My research is on a condition called familial hypercholesterolaemia…..it’s an inherited condition and the people who have it do not have a working copy of a protein that takes the bad cholesterol out of the blood. You are right that cholesterol can be managed by diet, but only 15% of cholesterol in the body comes from diet, the rest is made continuously by the liver…….the patients with FH are making cholesterol all the time but have no way of getting rid of it…..even if they ate absolutely no cholesterol (ie a diet of cardboard!) they would still have very high cholesterol. My research is trying to find ways of giving these patients a working copy of the broken protein so they can start getting rid of all the cholesterol in their blood.

Just as an aside….for people who have high cholesterol diet is really only part of the solution. Yes you can decrease it, but there are many other factors that contribute to high cholesterol. Findings from my research could also help us understand why some people have very high cholesterol and help us think of ways to lower it!