Question: What is hypercholesterolaemia?

Olivia Hibbitt answered on 15 Mar 2010:

Hi Katieee!
Hypercholesterolaemia is a latin/medical way of saying high cholesterol. Everyone needs cholesterol in their veins, it’s essential for life! Cell membranes are made out of it, hormones are made out of it. Cholesterol is made in the liver but needs to get to all organs in the body, and this is a bit of a design flaw, to get around the body it has to go into the blood stream. Cholesterol is insoluble…..that means that there is all this insoluble stuff in our bloodstream, kind of like pouring olive oil into a jug of water. If you have too much it gets stuck onto wall of blood vessels forming plaques. These can break off or block off arteries causing huge health problems!