What is familial hypercholesterolemia?

What is familial hypercholesterolemia and how to thrive if you have it Familial hypercholesterolemia is an inherited condition which leads to very high cholesterol levels. If you take away the word "familial", then hypercholesterolemia itself simply means high blood cholesterol. As discussed often on this blog, in normal adults, high cholesterol is almost 100% manageable via lifestyle alone (without the need for prescription drugs like statins.) In familial hypercholesterolemia, the reason for the high cholesterol is primarily genetic. The picture above is from my (very large) family reunion. These are most of my immediate cousins from my dad's family which [...]

5 year health-iversary for managing familial hypercholesterolemia without drugs

5 year health-iversary for managing familial hypercholesterolemia without drugs I just realized that this August 2016 marks my five year anniversary of managing Familial Hypercholesterolemia without drugs. Woot! Yahoo!  Yippee!  I thought I'd jot down a quick: happy-5-year-health-iversary-to-me post to mark the occasion and celebrate something that once seemed impossible to achieve. I haven't done any of the typical Transformation Tuesday type posts before. In case this is new to you - these #transformationtuesday hashtag posts are usually motivating posts on blogs or social media by people on a health journey. They document the before and after pictures of someone who has had [...]