Specialists from the University of California have recommended that treatment to lower cholesterol should begin in childhood in order to cut the risk of heart disease.
They claim that although the success of cholesterol-lowering treatments such as statins, which have reduced the amount of deaths from heart disease by around 30 percent, most patients are treated too late to gain maximum benefit.
Writing in the journal Circulation, Professor Daniel Steinberg of the University of California and colleagues say doctors have been “slow to measure cholesterol levels in children, still less to prescribe cholesterol-lowering regimes for them.”
But in a review of research they believe that lowering the cholesterol levels in children and young adults could be potentially life-saving. They say that while it should be achieved by healthy diet and exercise, drugs may need to be used for those who are classed as high-risk.
“Our review of the literature convinces us that more aggressive and earlier intervention will probably prevent considerably more than 30 per cent of coronary heart disease,” said Professor Steinberg.
“Studies show that fatty-streak lesions in the arteries that are a precursor to thickening and heart disease begin in childhood and advanced lesions are not uncommon by age 30. Why not nip things in the bud?”
In the 1950s, tests were carried out on Japanese men that showed that because they had eaten a low-fat diet from infancy, this resulted in low cholesterol levels. Japan’s rate of death due to heart disease was one-tenth of that found in the US, where fat intake is much higher.
“Treatment for 50-year-olds is effective but is unlikely to reverse established heart disease and will therefore have a limited impact in terms of preventing heart attacks. The evidence is now overwhelming that low cholesterol equals low rates of heart disease,” the group says.
“Our long-term goal should be to alter our lifestyles, beginning in infancy or early childhood. Instituting a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet at seven months is perfectly safe.”
