Once you have been diagnosed, and have a treatment and management plan in place, you will find that many aspects of living with the disorder become routine. This includes modifying your diet to one that is heart healthy, quitting smoking (if you smoke) and regularly exercising. You will also likely need to take medications to help lower your cholesterol and have regular check-ups to ensure that your risk of cardiovascular disease remains as low as possible.

If you have FH, your life expectancy is affected by whether you treat the condition or not. Without treatment, your lifespan may be reduced by 15–30 years. Additionally, if you have the more aggressive recessive form, it may be more significantly affected, with some people dying by 20. 

Regardless of which type of FH you have, appropriate treatment and management of the disorder has been shown to significantly improve your prognosis, bringing it in line with the average life expectancy.

Common high cholesterol (known as dyslipidaemia) is caused by lifestyle factors, like eating lots of saturated fats, regularly smoking and not getting enough exercise. Conversely, FH is a genetic disorder caused by a mutation in specific genes. These can be inherited through your parents or occur spontaneously when you are conceived.

In some respects, treatment for hypercholesterolemia and FH are the same. You will likely need to change aspects of your lifestyle, like improving your diet and getting more regular exercise. You may also need to take medication to help lower your cholesterol. However, the difference between simply having dyslipidaemia and FH is that FH is more serious and requires more aggressive treatment, without which the risk of serious heart and vascular problems escalates. You will need to manage it and treat the symptoms for the rest of your life. But doing so will significantly reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and other potentially life-threatening outcomes.