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Diet and FH

Find the most important recent research around diet and familial hypercholesterolaemia

NICE Clinical guideline [CG71]; Familial hypercholesterolaemia: identification and management

These guidelines include dietary and lifestyle recommendations and highlight that 'all people with FH should be offered individualised nutritional advice from a healthcare professional with specific expertise in nutrition'. 


Samuel Gidding (2019) Special Commentary: Is diet management helpful in familial hypercholesterolemia? Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care. 22(2):135–140

According to this review, diet treatment adds incremental health benefit to pharmacologic treatment in familial hypercholesterolemia.


Kinnear FJ, Wainwright E, et al (2019) Enablers and barriers to treatment adherence in heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia: a qualitative evidence synthesis BMJ Open; 9:e030290.

This thematic synthesis of qualitative studies revealed several enablers and barriers to treatment adherence in individuals with FH. These could be used in clinical practice to facilitate optimal adherence to lifelong treatment thereby minimising the risk of CVD in this vulnerable population.


Arsenault, Benoit J.; Perrot, Nicolas; Couture, Patrick (2017) Does lifestyle contribute to disease severity in patients with inherited lipid disorders? Current Opinion in Lipidology; 28(2): 177–185

Although reducing the number of atherogenic apolipoprotein-B containing particle with lipid-lowering therapy represents the cornerstone of treatment of patients with inherited lipid disorders, lifestyle-related risk factors such as physical inactivity and poor diet quality need to be targeted for the optimal management of these high-risk patients.


Luiza Antoniazzi, Raquel Arroyo-Olivares, et al (2019) Association of dietary components with dyslipidemia and low-grade inflammation biomarkers in adults with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia from different countries. Eur J Clin Nutr  doi:10.1038/s41430-019-0529-3

This multicentre, cross-sectional study of 190 familial hypercholesterolemia adults from Brazil (BR) and Spain (SP), found there was a direct association respectively of cholesterol with lipid biomarkers and of carbohydrates and trans-fatty acids with hs-CRP, while other fats showed inverse relations with the latter