The Motley Fool's health-care show Market Checkup focuses this week on cholesterol, one of America's most notable health-care concerns.

High cholesterol may not seem particularly dangerous on the surface, but when you add up the amount of at-risk Americans (71 million) and its link to the nation's most prevalent killer (heart disease, at 600,000 deaths per year), the gravity of the situation becomes quickly apparent. The good news is that pharmaceutical products and healthier lifestyles have contributed to combat this problem head-on.

In this video, health-care analysts David Williamson and Max Macaluso discuss the next wave of high-cholesterol-reducing drugs: PCSK9 inhibitors. These are injected biologic products that are producing startling results in clinical trials. Find out how one woman's genetic defect helped inspire a treatment revolution, which stocks are at the cutting edge of this research, and how doctors may receive this new class of drugs.

Follow David on Twitter: @MotleyDavid.