This public talk is presented by Professor Gerald Watts who will discuss the inherited risk of having an early heart attack.

TENS of thousands of patients who have inherited a dangerously high risk of a heart attack in early life are going undetected.

The condition, called familial hypercholesterolaemia, greatly accelerates the process by which arteries harden and fur up with fatty deposits, so that heart attacks begin to strike when patients are in their 40s or even 30s, instead of 50s and 60s.