Lea en español Cholesterol tests are well-established as an important part of a routine health screening – for adults. For young people, it's another story. Relatively few children and teenagers are screened for cholesterol issues.
Several factors, including differences in medical experts' recommendations, might confuse parents and even their primary care physicians, cholesterol experts say. Whatever the cause, it means opportunities to spot a serious health risk are being missed. Overall, about 1 in 5 adolescents has a cholesterol level that is out of a healthy range, said Dr.
Sarah de Ferranti, a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children's Hospital. "So this is definitely an issue that affects children," she said. "Fortunately, not all of those abnormalities are sustained over time, and not all need medication, and many can be addressed with following a healthy lifestyle.
But definitely, kids are afflicted with abnormal cholesterol values." De Ferranti, who also is an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, was part of an American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology task force that wrote the latest cholesterol guidelines in 2018. Those guidelines support the idea of checking for a cholesterol abnormality once between ages 9 and 11 and again once between ages 17 and 21, de Ferranti said.
Earlier screenings, as early as age 2, are reasonable for people with a family history of early heart disease or very high cholesterol. That's in li.
