Sharing another interesting article from SHOTS entitled :
By Nancy Shute
Children today are growing up fast — so fast that they're
now being told to have their cholesterol tested before they hit puberty.
The new recommendation to test all children for cholesterol
at ages 9 to 11 comes from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The
goal is to reduce the risk of heart disease in adulthood. But the new
recommendation runs counter to the advice of another federally-funded
independent panel, which says routine screening isn't needed before age 20.
"The more we learn the more we realize that the
atherosclerosis process really begins early in life," says Steven Daniels,
chair of the panel that wrote the new guidelines, and a pediatric cardiologist
who chairs the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of
Medicine. The earlier in life cholesterol risk can be identified, the premise
goes, the easier to keep it under control.
Pediatricians were already supposed to be doing cholesterol
tests in children who are obese, have diabetes or have a family history of
heart disease. But after studies found that those screening tools weren't
catching some grade-schoolers with high cholesterol, the notion of universal
screening gained traction.
Kids won't like it, because it requires a blood draw, and
that means a needle. But the test won't require a special visit; it will be
part of regular well child visits. The new guidelines are endorsed by the
American Academy of Pediatrics is publishing them Monday in the journal
Pediatrics.
But the new recommendation isn't universally endorsed. Some
doctors think the call for universal screening is overkill, since only about
half of children with high cholesterol will go on to have that problem as
adults. And researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported last year that in many children, high levels of LDL cholesterol
corrected themselves by the next office visit.
A 2007 recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task
Force, a federally-funded group that sets practice guidelines, says there's not
enough evidence to recommend universal screening under age 20.
Daniels says that universal screening is intended to find
children with very high LDL cholsterol, the "bad" kind, is 190
milligrams of the stuff in each decliter oof blood. Overall, less than 1
percent of children would be candidates for treatment with statin drugs, he
says. "I don't think it's likely that there will be overtreatment."
More likely is that Mom and Dad will need to get serious
about exercise eating healthy. Daniel says: "It gives them a stronger
rationale for working hard on making the home the healthiest environment that
it could be."
Even though statins have an enviable safety record in
adults, no studies have been done on the implications of putting children on
statins for the rest of their lives. That's why today's recommendation gives
some physicians pause.
