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 a rare life-threatening form of high cholesterol known as homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. This genetic disease has recently received not one but two treatment options, causing the biotechs responsible to more than double over the past year as their expensive drugs meet an an unaddressed market. Find out which stocks investors should look at and how they could keep their impressive run going.

Follow David on Twitter: @MotleyDavid.