The American Heart Association estimates that one and four U.S.

adults has high cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

New cholesterol guidelines aim to lower bad cholesterol by recommending earlier screenings and interventions.

Our Christine spoke to a physician assistant in cardiology to break down what's changed and why it matters.

This as we continue our look at today's medical news.

Katrina Hancock from Norton Heart and Vascular Institute is here.

We're talking about the new guidelines, which really puts an emphasis on early screening, early intervention.

But let's talk about cholesterol.

This baseline give us a baseline information of what is bad cholesterol.

And why do we need to worry about it.

Think of cholesterol as pouring grease down your kitchen sink.

We don't want to do that because that grease can build up in the sink and clog the pipes.

Cholesterol is no different.

Reporting basically, when we're eating a lot of cholesterol, our liver is making cholesterol.

That's putting grease down our our pipes, our arteries that slow around our heart.

Okay.

So it can clog up the arteries.

Okay.

So with these new guidelines, what are some of the biggest changes?

It's very exciting news.

Number one, it focuses a lot more on early intervention because we know that it's not just about a number, but it's about timing.

And it really does matter.

It's about how long we have high cholesterol and how long we have that cholesterol.

So timing matters.

It's talking about a new type of screening for something called lipoprotein A, because that is something that really does clog those pipes.

That also affects our aortic valve.

Something that we're really focusing a lot more on.

It also focuses more on not just looking at our ten year, cardiovascular disease risk, but our 30 year risk.

So if I'm talking to a patients that that's only 30 years old and I'm trying to explain them, their risk of heart disease only being, you know, maybe 3 or 5% in ten years, they're not terribly interested.

But when I tell them, yeah, but maybe in 30 years you have a 25% risk of heart disease.

Now all of a sudden, their ears are perking up a bit more.

So it looks at the at that, it includes their risk of heart failure.

And heart failure is the number one, reason for hospitalization in the United States.

So now we're broadening the discussion with patients to include heart failure.

So that's really important.

So I think those are probably the biggest changes.

Yeah, those are big changes.

Okay.

You talked about that early intervention, early screening.

How early can we put an age to it?

Well, the the new guidelines have it as early as 30.

So before we weren't screening patients until the age of 40 or 45.

But now the guidelines let us, screen patients as early as 30.

Okay, 30 years old.

And for, let's say, even a child that may have, family history, at these issues.

Can it be done even in childhood?

We're unfortunately, because of childhood obesity.

We're seeing a lot of high cholesterol in children.

Not just, because of obesity, a poor diet.

So we're screening children, I think.

I think the age of 12, the children are getting screened.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

So for people maybe taking statins or medication to lower cholesterol, will these new guidelines change anything for their treatment?

We're getting much more aggressive.

It also focuses more not just on statin therapy, but other lipid lowering therapies that are out there of patients that, maybe statins aren't just strong enough.

So if we because we are getting more aggressive, the stat is not strong enough.

What other therapies can we add on?

Or if people think that maybe the setting just doesn't make them feel very well?

We also have other options.

And there's exciting news for that lipoprotein A that I talked about that really nasty type of cholesterol.

There's new drug therapies on the market that's looking to come out even later this year.

Oh, wow.

That is exciting.

Very exciting time.

Okay.

Well, Katrina Hancock, thank you so much for being here and for your expertise.

Absolute