You've just gotten the results from the little finger prick that was your child's cholesterol check at the pediatrician's office. Since elevated cholesterol in childhood is linked to heart disease in adulthood, you're relieved. Maybe you shouldn't be. Last week, at an American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Darwin Labarthe, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center, argued against sporadic cholesterol checks and contended that the current standards, set in 1991 by a government-sponsored panel, may misclassify half of all children.
Most pediatricians know that a child's cholesterol level can swing from one test to the next.
As a result, Labarthe wants target numbers that account for gender and change yearly. Keep it simple. But it calls for a precision, he says, that may be unwarranted given the panel's desire to keep measurements simple. The more complicated the tests, says Cleeman, the less likely doctors will use them. The 1991 panel also advised checking only children who are at risk of having high cholesterol as adults because of family history.