Professor Robert Byrne

In the Western world that we live in, where we consume a lot of cholesterol, then our cholesterol levels increase.

So the short answer is if you're 40, you're listening to this and you don't know what your cholesterol is, you need to know what it is.

But we're also increasing, of course, like anything else, it's lifetime risk.

And actually, there's a certain people who have very strong family history of heart disease, and they probably need to know at a younger age in your 20s and 30s.

Yeah, it's cholesterol is definitely having high cholesterol is something that doesn't give you symptoms.

It's like having high blood pressure.

It generally doesn't give you symptoms.

And that's why you need to know about it and have a check.

Doctors take part in what they call opportunistic screening.

So someone comes in with another problem and the doctor will sit you down and say, well, we check your blood pressure while you're here.

They say, when have you last had your cholesterol check?

Well, maybe we should do a cholesterol check.

So you don't know about it.

It doesn't cause you any symptoms.

And that's why it's important to have it checked regularly.

So, I mean, he's right.

It's the plaque buildup in your heart arteries that's the critical thing.

And that causes heart attack.

If the plaque that's built up in your heart arteries suddenly ruptures, your body builds a clot on that ruptured plaque to try to heal the plaque.

That causes blood to stop and you have a heart attack.