Dr Amir Khan

So high cholesterol is one of the leading causes of people needing kidney dialysis.

It's one of the leading causes of kidney failure.

It's also a problem with your vision as well because it can interrupt the blood flow to the back of your eyes in the same way I was describing earlier.

So so we don't want there to be any warning signs.

Very, very occasionally, some people can get changes in their eyes so they can get deposits of cholesterol, which look like yellow kind of mushrooms, tiny little mushrooms almost in around their their eyes on the skin.

But that's incredibly rare.

That's a warning sign that your cholesterol is too high.

Really, the only way you know you've got high cholesterol is by asking or doing a blood test.

And if you're 40 or over, the NHS will do that for you.

Yes.

Right.

So a Q-risk is something us doctors use to decide whether somebody needs to be on a statin.

Now, so when people hear the word statins, statins are medication that we use very frequently to lower people's risk of having a heart attack and stroke by lowering their cholesterol.

But we don't just prescribe statins based on someone's cholesterol or HDL or LDL readings.

It is not that simple.

Our computers do a calculation and they look at what other health conditions you have, what your last blood pressure was, your sex, where you live in the UK, your ethnicity, your family history.

All of these things go into this calculation and it calculates your risk of having a heart attack or stroke over the next 10 years.

Cholesterol forms a big part of that calculation, but it's not the only part of that calculation.

So if your risk of having a heart attack or stroke is more than 10%, then we will say, look, you should be on a statin.

So indirectly, I would say.