You watch what you eat, you exercise religiously...yet your cholesterol isn't budging. If this scerario sounds too familiar, your high cholesterol could be due to your genes. In fact, studies have shown that almost 50% cases of high cholesterol are inherited. There has been a lot of research lately looking at which genes cause cholesterol. Recent research has identified a possible relationship between single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, and the incidence of high cholesterol and heart disease.