How’s your cholesterol?
How’s your cholesterol? Professor Stephen Nicholls from Monash Victorian Heart Institute is a guest on 'The Shed Wireless' podcast, where he explains that many of us have ‘the gene’ that causes high cholesterol.
Steve's contribution to the 'Ask the Doc' section can be heard from about 38:30. He gives a good overview on cholesterol for heart health and why it is important.
Professor Stephen Nicholls joins this episode of Ask the Doc to really nail down a good understanding of how cholesterol affects the smooth running of your engine or perhaps, more importantly, keeps the fuel lines clear. Steve is a world renowned cardiologist and leads the Victorian Heart Hospital that's due to open next year. He's won lots of awards, has written almost 800 papers, books and conference proceedings and has raised more than $100 million in research funding.
In this podcast, Steve talks about cholesterol and explains that cholesterol is one of the fats in the body. Every cell in the body needs cholesterol to the form of the walls of the cells.
Over the generations, we have come to have more cholesterol than we really need, because our diets and lifestyles have changed. While there are some genes that are associated with different cholesterol levels, the profile of genes in a population don't change that quickly …. and so you start to think, “what do we do differently now compared to what we did 200 years ago?” Now we eat a lot and we don't do a lot of exercise.
Steve suggests that every Australian adult should have a cholesterol test in their early 20s. He says 1 in 200 Australians have FH (familial hypercholesterolemia) - the gene that can cause high cholesterol.
Steve explains that heart disease is the leading cause of death in this country. An Australian dies every 12 minutes due to heart disease. “We know that more than 50,000 Australians will have a heart attack this year - that would fill most big footy stadiums.”
Listen to the podcast for practical tips and advice.
About Monash University
Monash University is Australia’s largest university with more than 80,000 students. In the 60 years since its foundation, it has developed a reputation for world-leading high-impact research, quality teaching, and inspiring innovation.
With four campuses in Australia and a presence in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Italy, it is one of the most internationalised Australian universities.
As a leading international medical research university with the largest medical faculty in Australia and integration with leading Australian teaching hospitals, we consistently rank in the top 50 universities worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences.
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