{"id":424,"date":"2008-07-14T11:25:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T11:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2008\/07\/statins-%e2%80%9cr%e2%80%9d-us.html"},"modified":"2008-07-14T11:25:15","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T11:25:15","slug":"statins_r_us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2008\/07\/statins_r_us.html","title":{"rendered":"Statins \u201cR\u201d US"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a> has stirred up a controversy<\/a> with its new recommendations <\/a>for childhood cholesterol management. Appearing in this month\u2019s edition of Pediatric<\/em>s<\/a>, the guidelines instruct doctors to begin cholesterol screening in children ages two to ten with risk factors such as obesity, diabetes and a family history of high cholesterol. For interventions, the authors recommend a healthy diet, nutritional counseling and physical activity \u2013 nothing surprising. But here\u2019s the kicker: doctors should consider prescribing cholesterol-lowering statins for children as young as eight with high cholesterol.<\/p>\n

This last recommendation has concerned people for a number of reasons. Although research shows that statins<\/a> can lower cholesterol in adults and children<\/a>, critics argue that no studies have lasted long enough to assess the long-term effects of taking the drugs so early in life. Furthermore, the article contains no conflict-of-interest disclosures from its seven authors, one of whom has worked as a consultant<\/a> for Merck & Co., a company that makes statins, and another who has been involved<\/a> in industry-backed clinical trials on cholesterol meds. Finally, there is concern that the recommendations will put pressure doctors to prescribe statins to kids with borderline high cholesterol \u2013 those who could otherwise control it with diet and exercise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis report has taken on a new urgency given the current epidemic of childhood obesity with the subsequent increasing risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension and cardiovascular disease in older children and adults,\u201d the authors assert. But is it possible that pushing statins for certain kids will actually worsen the obesity epidemic by shifting emphasis away from the more fundamental issues of diet and lifestyle?<\/p>\n

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Photo by striatic<\/a> via Flickr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Academy of Pediatrics has stirred up a controversy with its new recommendations for childhood cholesterol management. Appearing in this month\u2019s edition of Pediatrics, the guidelines instruct doctors to begin cholesterol screening in children ages two to ten with risk factors such as obesity, diabetes and a family history of high cholesterol. For interventions, the authors recommend a healthy diet, nutritional counseling and physical activity \u2013 nothing surprising. But here\u2019s the kicker: doctors should consider prescribing cholesterol-lowering statins for children as young as eight with high cholesterol.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drugs-drugs-and-more-drugs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}