New cholesterol guidelines urged for adolescents

Experts say it's important to identify early those at high risk of heart disease, but some say teens have more pressing issues.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Oct. 16, 2006.

A crystal ball to predict high cholesterol? Not exactly.

But, according to a paper published in the Sept. 5 Circulation, improvements in the current risk-calculation system could enable physicians to detect better who among their teenage patients may be headed for cardiovascular disease later in life. The guiding principles would be age- and gender-specific cholesterol standards.

Although cholesterol fluctuates throughout childhood and adolescence, current definitions of high levels, based on the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's National Cholesterol Education Program, are the same whether a child is 2 years old or 17, male or female.

"The goal is to better identify the people who are at risk and be able to put a special emphasis on changing their lifestyle," said Ian Janssen, PhD, senior author and assistant professor in the Dept. of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

In general, the study outlines a new set of healthy cholesterol numbers derived from data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

Response was mixed. Some praised the efforts to more precisely determine teenagers' normal cholesterol ranges, saying a tool based on this information could complement similar growth curve mechanisms already in use for weight and height.

"It would be useful to have cholesterol curves just like height, weight and body mass index curves, and have them all tied together," said Irwin Benuck, MD, PhD, a pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.