In other words, up until a certain age, will doctors hold off prescribing these, simply because someone is too young? At what age generally will they stop giving diet/exercise a chance?

I think it depends a lot upon the individual doctor. Someone on this board not too long ago reported that an 18-year-old had come to school all upset because his doctor had given him a prescription for a cholesterol-lowering medication, and he, of course, was led to believe it was for life.

In other words, up until a certain age, will doctors hold off prescribing these, simply because someone is too young? At what age generally will they stop giving diet/exercise a chance?

I was chatting with a colleague about how I got my cholesterol checked for the first time (I'm in my 30s) and how I'm hoping I don't need meds, hoping I can fix things with diet and exercise. Well, she told me her six-year-old was just checked and had very high cholesterol. Her doc/pediatrician told her to adjust her child's diet and her doctor told her, "Hopefully we won't have to resort to medication." My friend admitted to me that all the little kids like nowadays is hot dogs, mac & cheese, and little battered chicken bites, and she is changing the diets for all of her kids, but six years old??? Yikes. These kids are active, too, gymnastics, dance classes, fishing with dad every weekend, biking...not overweight, either.

Now, I don't know if they give young kids different medications than us older folks, but it seems they are looking at children now, really young children.

Lysne

I was chatting with a colleague about how I got my cholesterol checked for the first time (I'm in my 30s) and how I'm hoping I don't need meds, hoping I can fix things with diet and exercise. Well, she told me her six-year-old was just checked and had very high cholesterol. Her doc/pediatrician told her to adjust her child's diet and her doctor told her, "Hopefully we won't have to resort to medication." My friend admitted to me that all the little kids like nowadays is hot dogs, mac & cheese, and little battered chicken bites, and she is changing the diets for all of her kids, but six years old??? Yikes. These kids are active, too, gymnastics, dance classes, fishing with dad every weekend, biking...not overweight, either.

Now, I don't know if they give young kids different medications than us older folks, but it seems they are looking at children now, really young children.

Lysne


Oh boy, is there no end to medicine's chicanery? Children should not be given statins. It's bad enough that they are being well overprescribed to adults! I can see it coming already....kids on statins, developing debilitating muscular aches and pains, cognitive problems, and peripheral neuropathy. What a world we're living in!

Oh boy, is there no end to medicine's chicanery? Children should not be given statins. It's bad enough that they are being well overprescribed to adults! I can see it coming already....kids on statins, developing debilitating muscular aches and pains, cognitive problems, and peripheral neuropathy. What a world we're living in!

I think I posted a few months ago where I had read some drs. are giving statins to young kids. I know I have read a few articles on the web about it, and almost flipped out to see such young kids being given these drugs. Isn't it bad enough they are being drugged for being a lil hyper etc. etc., and now they want them on statins, what a wacky world!!!!

My daughter, who is 44 recently had her cholesterol checked, and they wanted her on Lipitor. She called me and asked my opinion, and after hearing her numbers, I told her NO, they certainly were not high enough to be on a statin, they were barely borderline. She told her dr. what I said, so the dr. told her fine, let's try the diet and exercise routine. At least she didn't give her grief over it, and did agree she just might beable to get within a good range if she changed her eating habits. Thank God someone listens!!

longer that we ever knew-perhaps as children/adolescents-and it was never diagnosed until our mid-30s-which is usually the earliest point at which people learn they have high cholesterol? That's really depressing.

Ever wondered why eggs are high in cholesterol ?

Its because chicks need a lot of cholesterol to form their brains, heart and other vital organs and its the same with children. Higher cholesterol is normal in growing children, the brain has a high level of fat and cholesterol and growing children need it.

Giving young children statins could be damaging except in the case of hypercholesterol, a genetic defect. The trouble is doctors seem to be mesmerised by drug company publicity and the fear of malpractice if they dont treat everybody with high cholesterol no matter what their age.

On the other side of the coin,my previous cardiologist, now retired, wouldn't give statins to anybody over 60 years who had had no previous heart problems,because he said it would shorten their life more than the high cholesterol. He told me he had a total cholesterol of 280 and he is still alive at the age of 74.

I think a good standard for prescribing cholesterol meds for the very young is family history. For example a kid with two parents with heart disease in their '40's might wisely be treated.
Certainly a 20 year old with proven angina (it happens), obesity and/or diabetes or hypertriglyceridemia might wisely be put on a regimen that includes statins. Cases of familial hypercholesteremia might also wisely be put in this category.....
I'm thinking the Syndrome X group.

The high risk of death at 40 or 50 from certain conditions often demands more Draconian measures than would be reasonable for the general population.

Live rock you are exactly right. I think it should be almost criminal for any doctor to give cholesterol lowering medications to a woman who is trying to get pregnant, or at some time in the future expects to have children. Some statins are known as X drugs which have been shown to produce more abnormalities than the morning sickness pill thalidomide. The children were born without arems and legs and with their brains on the outside of there heads. Cholesterol is so important to the brain that it even produces its own supply of cholesterol. Thanks for your great imput.