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There are three main lipid disorders that you can inherit from one or both of your parents.

This is the most serious lipid disorder you can inherit. It means that very high cholesterol runs in your family. You only need to inherit one gene from one of your parents to get the disorder. So if one parent has the disorder, there's a 1 in 2 chance that the condition will be passed to a child.

About 1 in 500 people have this disorder.¹ The faulty gene means that your liver isn't able to pick up as much bad (LDL) cholesterol as it should. This increases the level of LDL cholesterol in your blood and leads to narrowing of the arteries (atherosclerosis).

People with familial hypercholesterolemia often have twice as much cholesterol as the level that doctors normally think of as high.¹ So they often get heart disease at an early age (men get it in their 30s and 40s, and women get it in their 40s and 50s).

If you inherit familial hypercholesterolemia from both parents, you will have a more severe form of the illness. About 1 in a million people have this.¹ It causes heart disease in childhood.

About 1 in 500 people get this disorder. If you have it your risk of getting heart disease is not as high as if you have familial hypercholesterolemia.¹ This disorder also runs in families, and it shows up as raised levels of triglycerides in your blood. The way it's passed on means you only need to inherit one gene from one of your parents to get the disorder. People with this disorder have very high levels of triglycerides.

This is the most common inherited lipid disorder. About 1 or 2 people in every 100 have this condition.² It means you have high levels of cholesterol, triglycerides or both.

If you have this disorder, you're 70 percent more likely to get heart disease than someone who doesn't have it.³

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment. ©BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2008. All rights reserved.