Cholesterol screening for two year olds in the USA

Often in health matters we follow the USA, but this is one case where I sincerely hope we don’t. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is recommending cholesterol screening for children as young as two if there are weight issues or a family history of heart attacks or high cholesterol.

That might sound like a good health preventive, except that the response if high cholesterol is found is to recommend statin drugs, not dietary changes. Statins work by blocking the action of a certain enzyme in the liver which is needed to make cholesterol. Proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs of heart disease show up in childhood – which is true – but their claim that cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, may be their best hope of lowering their risk of early heart attack is much more controversial.

Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the AAP nutrition committee, has said that “The risk of giving statins at a lower age is less than the benefit you’re going to get out of it”. A statement that is seriously undermined when he went on to say that there is not “a whole lot” of data on pediatric use of cholesterol-lowering drugs. So how on earth can he recommend it foThe use of statins in adults is currently under debate, so why on earth promote a drug that has been shown to actually cause heart problems in healthy subjects? Last year, US researchers at the University of Illinois examined the effects of the statin drug Lipitor on subjects with no history of heart problems. After taking the drug for three to six months, some subjects showed deterioration in at least one marker for heart function, and a smaller number were found to have deterioration in three different heart function markers. Natural Alternatives|:

Statins have been heavily promoted to reduce cholesterol, but there are plenty of healthy alternatives instead. CoQ10, artichoke leaf, red yeast rice and sugar cane are all being used to reduce cholesterol and if you have a history of heart disease in your family, or are concerned about your cholesterol levels – or those of your children – then these are some other things you can try:

* Follow a low-glycaemic diet (low processed carbohydrates), which lowers cholesterol

* Eat foods containing high levels of beta-sitosterol, found in most plants, especially soybeans, as they can reduce cholesterol by at least 10 per cent

* Take omega-3 fatty-acid supplements, preferably with vitamin B6

* Eat a high-fibre diet based on vegetables, fruits and nuts and oat bran, apple pectin and psyllium are especially helpful

* Try blue-green algae supplements; they contain large amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids which may reduce cholesterol

* Garlic lowers cholesterol so cook frequently with it

Cholesterol – Keeping the balance naturally

If you watch television, or read magazines, you cannot miss the constant bombardment on the ‘evils’ of high cholesterol. Certainly, out of control levels of high cholesterol are to be avoided, but so too is low cholesterol. It is not the cholesterol itself that is ‘evil’; we actually require normal levels for the production of the hormones testosterone and oestrogen, and it is found in our cell membranes as part of the structure to keep them waterproof.

Without cholesterol, we could not have a different biochemistry on the inside and the outside of the cell. When cholesterol levels are not adequate, the cell membrane becomes leaky or porous, a situation the body interprets as an emergency, and then releases a flood of corticoid hormones to repair the damage.

Cholesterol is therefore essential as it is the body’s chief repair substance: scar tissue contains high levels of cholesterol, including scar tissue in the arteries. So you can see that so cutting out all cholesterol is actually a bad idea. Studies have shown that there is an increased risk of strokes and a compromised immune system when cholesterol drops too low, but as always the answer lies in balance.

If you do have high cholesterol then it can lead to hardening of the arteries and heart disease, but statin drugs, given for the inhibition of cholesterol, – as I have reported before – have their problems too. They have been associated with side effects such as muscle pain and weakness, memory loss, nerve problems and interference with production of Co-Q10.

Natural Solutions?

So, if you don’t want to take drugs to lower your cholesterol, what can you do? Back to the advertisers, who imply that by switching to their margarine, or yoghurt product, you can lower your levels naturally. Well, that depends on what you mean by ‘naturally’. If you read the labels on those products, they contain many chemical compounds, and the ‘healthy’ yoghurt drinks contain not only sugar but sweeteners as well.

So what else is left? Enter the humble grapefruit, wholly natural and a lot cheaper than buying the aforementioned products.

An international team of researchers from Israel, Singapore and Poland put grapefruit to an extremely rigorous cholesterol test. Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, recruited nearly 60 subjects who had several things in common: they all had undergone recent coronary bypass surgery, had high cholesterol levels, and had used a cholesterol-lowering statin drug with no success. At the outset of the study, none of the subjects had taken any statins for at least 30 days and they were divided into three groups. Over the 30-day study, everyone followed the same low-fat diet, but one group ate one yellow grapefruit a day, while another group ate one red grapefruit daily. They all ate their normal, everyday diet and the third group got no grapefruit at all.

At the end of the study, the two groups who had eaten the daily grapefruit had lower levels of both total cholesterol and LDL – and it was even more marked in the group who ate red grapefruit. Another benefit seemed to be that triglyceride levels also dropped in the red grapefruit group, but not in the other groups. Triglycerides are blood fats that can leave deposits in coronary arteries, and so increase the risk of heart disease.

Now my problem is that my local supermarket has red, yellow and pink grapefruit so I might have to ask them for advice on whether ‘pink’ has a diluted effect from the ‘red’ benefits!

More Good Grapefruit News

Oh, and if you are wanting to lose some weight, there was a study at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego four years ago, in which a group of 100 obese subjects were told to stay on their normal diets, and in addition were given either grapefruit or grapefruit juice to have once a day. On average they lost 3lb, and one person lost 10lbs, as opposed to the non-grapefruit trial group who lost less than a 1lb.

Diabetics may also be interested to learn that the subjects in that same study also showed better management of insulin levels. Those in the two grapefruit groups had lower levels of insulin and glucose than they did at the outset, while levels in the non-grapefruit group were unchanged. The Scripps researchers believe that enzymes in grapefruit help control insulin spikes that occur after a meal, which frees the digestive system to process food more efficiently. This means that less nutrients are stored as fat.

Caution

Many foods can interact with the effectiveness or efficiency of drugs, and grapefruit are no exception. Chemicals in grapefruit interfere with the enzymes that break down certain drugs in your digestive system and this can result in excessively high levels of these drugs in your blood, and an increased risk of side effects. The following list is a generic overview of the classes of drugs that may be affected. Bear in mind that it may not be all drugs within a particular group, so consult with your doctor if you are taking any of the following types of medication:

Anti-seizure medication – anti-arrhythmia drugs – antidepressants – erectile dysfunction – Calcium channel blockers -HIV medications – HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors used to treat high cholesterol – Immunosuppressant drugs – Methadone Pain relief – Tranquillisers.