A Growing Problem
Up to one-third of American children, from age 2 through the
teenage years, have high cholesterol. American children and
adolescents also have higher blood cholesterol levels and higher
intakes of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol, than their
counterparts in other countries, according to the American Academy
of Pediatrics. And the American Heart Association reports that
young children, even babies, can also have high levels of blood
pressure.
Recently the American Heart Association began recommending that
doctors start measuring children's blood pressure at age 3, and
blood cholesterol at age 5. The American Academy of Pediatrics
recommends cholesterol tests for children age 2 or older if their
parents or grandparents had heart disease or vascular disease
before age 55, or if their parents have cholesterol levels of 240
or higher.
"There is overwhelming evidence now that atherosclerosis, or a
buildup of plaque in the arteries, starts in childhood, not when
you're 50 or 60," says David J. Driscoll, MD, professor of
pediatrics and director of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at
the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. We know this from
autopsies performed on children who die of accidental deaths, he
notes. Other studies on young soldiers who died in Korea and
Vietnam showed that by their early 20s, many already had the
beginnings of atherosclerosis. "Some of them with pretty
significantly advanced disease."
We also know that there's a correlation between cholesterol and
other blood fat levels in children and the degree of fatty
streaking or atherosclerosis in their arteries, he said. In fact,
children and adolescents with high cholesterol levels are more
likely than the general population to have high levels as
adults.