Too Young for High Cholesterol?

When Elisheva’s husband Yaakov 31 developed a strange persistent rash on his neck he finally made a doctor’s appointment. He ended up seeing a newly graduated physician assistant who in trying to cover every possible option did a highly thorough blood workup onYaakov. “When he came home with the results he said ‘Oh Hashem help me.’ His cholesterol was very high ” Elisheva shares. The rash went away on its own — Hashem’s kind way Elisheva feels of letting the couple know about the true health hurdle they needed to deal with. “Until this happened we didn’t have any inkling about high cholesterol. We have no family history of it no heart disease. It was a little bit of a shock. To me cholesterol — it’s for old people.”Yaakov is just one of an estimated 71 million American adults with high cholesterol — a condition that doubles one’s risk of developing heart disease the leading cause of death in the United States. And a surprising number of young people may be at risk.