Cholesterol screening of seven-year-old children. How to identify children at risk.

An inquiry was distributed to the parents of 1052 seven-year-old school beginners, concerning three issues, i.e. a known family history of myocardial infarction, angina pectoris before the age of 55 years and hyperlipidemia. A total of 147 children with a known family history were included in the study and compared with 148 classmates as control subjects. The proband children were subgrouped according to heredity factors and subjected to multivariate analysis at the 5% significance level for serum cholesterol fractions and triglycerides vs the control group. Statistically significant increased levels of total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, as well as an increased low density lipoprotein cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio were found for all groups with hereditary for hyperlipidemia (p less than 0.001). However, no statistically significant difference was observed in the groups with heredity for myocardial infarction or angina pectoris exclusively. Also, there was no difference in any of the risk groups for high density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides. The serum cholesterol levels in the present study were, to our knowledge, higher than those found elsewhere, except for Finland.