Hypercholesterolemia Among Children

The rate of childhood obesity has at least tripled over the past 3 decades and has raised significant concerns about the cardiovascular health of America’s youth.1 Some fear that as a result of the obesity epidemic, a wave of debilitating chronic conditions will afflict America’s youth. We do not yet know when, or even if, the wave of cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypercholesterolemia and type 2 diabetes, will crash into the health of our country’s young adults. Perhaps the real question is the impact of childhood obesity, and the accompanying risk factors, on the health of Americans in their 30s and 40s.Article p 1108 The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition released new guidelines on the screening and treatment of high cholesterol in children and adolescents.2 The guidelines were an update from 1998 and were intended to define both a broad population approach and a targeted individual approach. The popular media focused on the message that statins could now be prescribed to obese children as young as 8 years of age, and they missed the message about population-based prevention through lifestyle changes in nutrition and physical activity. The concern for families and providers would be that any obese youth with elevated cholesterol would now need to start a medication that their grandparents also use.The public health and epidemiology community has recently provided data on the trends of a number of cardiovascular risk factors in youth. There needs to be more clarity in regard to the current health status of America’s children. There are significant differences in the rates of teens with an abnormal risk factor, such as impaired fasting glucose >100 mg/dL, and a clear clinical condition, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus. Previous data showed that the US prevalence of type 2 diabetes …