12/2/2012

For our group presentation on the cellular biology of a disease, we selected hypercholesterolemia. I addressed this a little bit in an earlier post, but wanted to expound why I wanted to select this for our project. Hypocholesterolemia is a metabolic disorder in which serum cholesterol levels are elevated. Long-term elevated levels can cause atherosclerosis, which is implicated in many cardiovascular diseases.

The biggest hurdle in the treatment of hypercholesterolemia is that it is usually asymptomatic until . Patients who don't seek regular checkups will usually wait decades with elevated levels before seeking treatment at advanced stages of illness when they have already developed atherosclerosis. 

CVD is the leading cause of death in the US.Most cases of hypercholesterolemia are preventable through proper lifestyle changes. I wanted to select hypercholesterolemia for our brochure in order to target a wide range of patients who may have this disease, and inform them on some simple options they may have in order to reduce the risks of developing CVD later in life.