Cholesterol Management Community

Nancy this cholesterol problem is in verhment debate amongst health professionals themselves. I would encourage you to seek more then one opinion when dealing with the health of your child.
Your thoughts on prevention for your child, to me, is the very best plan you can have.
If you are offered prescription medicine for your son before commencing ask your doctor for a list of all the known possible side effects of that medication so as you can closely monitor the safety aspects for your son.
Also ask you doctor what the NNT that is the number needed to treat factor and the ARR that is the Absolute Risk Reduction factor. When you have the NNT, the ARR and the list of possible reported side effects you are in a reasonable position to make a decision on risks verse side effects.

Making a health decision for one you love is far harder than making a decision for yourself.

The very best for your sons health.

Your son does have high cholesterol by the numbers, but much depends on the breakdown. Can you give us the LDL, HDL & TGL numbers as it would help to give you a better answer.

At his age, you should be able to easily lower his numbers with lifestyle changes as his total is not really all that high and does not seem to represent a genetic predisposition. Diet and exercise should do the trick, I would force that issue before starting a med at 11 years old.

Check out this link, it will be very helpful;

http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/guide/high-cholesterol-children

As far as Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR) and Number Needed to Treat (NNT), really not important at this point and will just confuse the issue. What is being referred to is the number of individuals needed to be treated to prevent one cardiac event which for a statin is between 20 - 25. (I'm sure others will post a higher number but I can provide a link to the actual number from the National Institute of Health). As far as ARR, that is lower at about 2.67%, but again really not important now.

I'm sure you're already controlling his diet, but keep it up. Also, make him stay active as exercise lowers LDL and increases HDL, get him away from the computer and TV! His blood sugars are good so he is not really at risk for metabolic X syndrome, but with all the numbers we can give you a better number.

Good luck!

Tony

" Recently, we found out that he has also low insulin levels, but his sugar level in blood is normal, and we don?t know if all this is connected."

Yes, there is a lot of indication that insulin resistance is often related to heart disease, even without affecting the blood sugar level. Not sure if it directly affects the cholesterol or not.

He may have FH, a genetic condition. But I think that cholesterol levels are typically much higher.

http://www.learnyourlipids.com/

That site has more information on FH and cholesterol in general. They also have links to doctors that specialize in treatment of lipids.

But really total cholesterol is not a very meaningful. You actually need to get the LDL, HDL, and Triglycerides.

And it might be helpful to get tested for Lp(a) and the sub-fractions of LDL and HDL.

Bill,

That's a great site, thanks for posting it. As far as FH goes, you are correct. Normally those with FH have much high TC than 231, typically it's over 350.

I also agree about being tested for sub-fractions. The more I read about these, the more important of a role I feel they play.

Thanks for sharing...................

Tony

Nancy I see someone has posted a figure for ARR Absolute Risk Reduction of 2.6% I do not know for what medicines this figure is relevant to. However if you are offered a medicine that has been shown to have an ARR that only properly works for 2.6 people per 100 then you can factor this into your decision making.

That's not what ARR is. Statins have a Relative Risk Reduction of 32% for cardiac events and an Actual Risk Reduction for all cause mortality of 2.67% per year. You're comparing apples to oranges. The number stated above is for the JUPITER trial and is the most conservative.

Other trials have reported better numbers as well. PROVE - IT showed 3.99% PER YEAR and ALLIANCE showed 4.0% PER YEAR.

Over 10 years, that's a pretty good risk reduction. Bottom line, this is not really pertinent to the OP's question.

Bottom line, this is not really pertinent to the OP's question.


Other person can evaluate for themselves that is what a discussion board is all about.

Other person can evaluate for themselves that is what a discussion board is all about.

That's not my point, we're just putting the cart before the horse. I can't imagine a doctor would prescribe an 11 year old boy with a TC of 231 a statin, which is what your warning is for. I don't think I would want to be sorting out ARR's and NNT's, I would be more concerned about lowering my child's TC and how I could do it.

I can't imagine a doctor would prescribe an 11 year old boy with a TC of 231 a statin,


I very sincerely hope you are correct.

Historically, the normal cholesterol range was from 150 to 250 until the pharmaceutical industry through their agents in the National Cholesterol Education Program was able to change the range to 130-200. Historically, 231 is still in the normal range. I would discount any NCEP guidelines.

I would discount any NCEP guidelines.

Why would you give that kind of suggestion? Could you provide some details why you feel that way?

If you're going to go down the road of the NCEP has been corrupted by big drug companies or some of the doctors on the panel have received monies from drug companies, please bring some data to show how that has affected their collective decision making.

Below is a link to their site so everyone can have all the information on their work;

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/ncep/

Again, the OP had a simple question, how can I help my child. This is just another thread that is becoming all about statin use and corruption of the system. Is this really helping the OP?

Of the nine members who developed the ATPIII protocol for the NCEP, eight members had financial ties with pharmaceutical companies that produce statins. Only Dr. Cleeman's hands were clean.
Source - http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atp3upd04_disclose.htm


"Statin drugs have been aggressively promoted by the pharmaceutical industry and medical opinion leaders," says THINCS member Paul Rosch, MD, President of the American Institute of Stress. "The new guidelines were not written by disinterested scientists, but by members of the medical community who have received major grants from the pharmaceutical industry. The recommendations are based on distorted statistical analysis of relative risk reduction that mislead doctors and the public. They are designed to turn healthy people into patients."
Source - http://www.thincs.org/pressrelease82004.htm

Of the nine members who developed the ATPIII protocol for the NCEP, eight members had financial ties with pharmaceutical companies that produce statins. Only Dr. Cleeman's hands were clean.

This proves what? I'm aware of their background, but how does this prove their judgement was altered? Show me one piece of proof, anything. The fact that at one time these doctors received honorariums for research work they did for a drug company does not prove they have become corrupt. Remember, you are talking about the NCEP which is under the control of the National Institute of Health which is part of the US Department of Human Services. Are you also alleging the federal government has been influenced?

Let's talk about Mr. Rosch, he authored a paper criticising the JUPITER study and it's results. Ironically, the chief author of this critical paper is himself a member of a fringe medical group known as The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS), whose stated mission is to "oppose" the notion that high cholesterol and animal fat play a role in cardiovascular disease. Members of THINCS also take an extraordinarily strong position opposing statins for any clinical use whatsoever. The irony, of course, is that this striking bias was not disclosed in an article whose main thrust was to criticise the disclosed biases of the JUPITER investigators. He has absolutely no credibility.

Once again we have allegations of bias against the members of the council, the National Institute of Health and the federal government with absolutely no proof, just pure conjecture.

How can a doctor be impartial knowing that his benefactors would reap untold billions if he made the right decision in lowering the normal cholesterol range? The mere appearance of a conflict of interest is sufficient to reject the NCEP guidelines.

Dr. Rosch is well known for his anti-statin stand. When reading an article critical of the Jupiter Study, one would expect the authors to have negative viewpoints.

Would this have been a proper disclosure statement for Dr. Rosch?

Dr. Rosch — I don't like statins and I'm a member of THINCS whose members also don't like statins.

However, his position on statins in no way DISPROVED his arguments against the Crestor Study and its investigators.

Kind Regards,
Farside