NIH Calls For Two Cholesterol Checks By Age 21

Children between the ages of 9 and 11 should have their blood cholesterol levels checked, according to new National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines that have been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

Furthermore, they should be tested a second time when they become teenagers or young adults between the ages of 17 and 21, state the new guidelines, which have been published in the journal Pediatrics and were the topic of a Medical News Today article on Saturday.

“Although children typically don’t have heart attacks and strokes, evidence has been mounting for years that the roots of those diseases begin early in life, and the rising rates of obesity have only fueled the risk,” Shari Roan of the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday, adding that the authors of the study believe that “doctors should start looking for signs of future heart disease in all kids.”

Roan calls the study, which was prepared over a number of years by a panel of experts and developed by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, “the first comprehensive guide on heart risk management in children.”

“Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in our society,” Dr. Stephen R. Daniels, the panel chairman and pediatrician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital Colorado, told the L.A. Times.

“We know the process that leads to those deaths begins in childhood. We also know that people who are able to maintain a low risk through childhood and early adulthood have a lower risk,” he added. “If they can reach age 50 with low-risk status, they are very unlikely to have heart disease. That is the payoff here.”

Likewise, Dr. Patrick McBride, one of the authors of the study, told Carrie Gann of ABC News that the previous method of only testing high-risk children “missed more than 50 percent of children with high cholesterol… increased screening is a necessary step.”

According to Gann, previous research has revealed that 10% to 13% of all children and teenagers have high cholesterol levels (200 or higher). She adds that pediatricians believe that known about this and other risk factors of cardiovascular disease can “be an important step” in avoiding such health issues.

The new pediatric cholesterol testing guidelines will also be presented Sunday during an American Heart Association meeting, ABC News said in their report.

source: redorbit