Big Pharma now wants 8-year-olds on cholesterol-lowering drugs.....

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:



Obese Kids May Be Candidates for Cholesterol Drugs, Doctors Say

By Cristina Alesci

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Children as young as 8 should take cholesterol-lowering drugs if diet changes fail to reduce levels, according to new guidelines by the American Academy of Pediatrics designed to prevent heart disease in adults.

High amounts of so-called bad cholesterol and low amounts of good cholesterol elevate the risk of cardiovascular disease in adults, according to a report by academy, which issues treatment recommendations for 60,000 pediatricians. The report recommends cholesterol screening for all overweight children, who are especially vulnerable to cardiovascular disease, and drug treatment to reduce bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoproteins.

The guidelines are the pediatric group's first change in a decade and replace recommendations to consider prescribing cholesterol drugs in children older than 10 if they fail to lose weight in a year. About 30 percent of U.S. children are overweight, according to a study published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Obese or overweight children may have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure as they grow, the pediatricians' report said.

``The report takes 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,'' the report said.

The report also recommended low-fat dairy products for children from ages 12 months to 2 years.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a0iO2.qeoUnc&refer=home

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Add it to the Ritalin and anti-depressants they're already on.

[Donnachaidh]

2. the same cholesterol drugs that can do SERIOUS damage to the liver?

Oh well, Big Pharma is just setting up these kids for even MORE drugs to counter the effect of the cholesterol drugs.

Just take your meds kids, and don't bleet too loud. :sarcasm:

[Overseas]

3. Maybe we can imbue Capt Crunch with statins !

Reese's peanut butter cups with statins !
KFC with statins!
Snack snack snack !

[mainegreen]

4. Honestly, I'm shocked by how overweight so many kids are now.

And many don't seem overweight in the same way some of the 'fat kids' were when I was younger. It seems more like an unhealthy fat. I know, not very scientific, but I seem to remember a lot of the overweight kids when I was younger tended to 'grow out of it'. Many of these kids now don't appear to be growing out of it.

What the hell happened?

And why are drugs seen as the cure?

[Tunkamerica]

12. this was on the radio yesterday, they were saying

that not only does exposure to pvc's affect you, but if you're pregnant it affects your child and your child's eggs (if female) so it affects your grandchildren. PVC's make up most newer plumbing and all the plastic bottles and food containers. It has been shown to make mice fat and even when the exposure stops the mice never go back to being thin. PVC's have been proven to leech into water. Maybe that's one reason.


http://www.healthcentral.com/diet-exercise/news-251958-66.html

[Warpy]

5. You could always stick it to the man

and watch your kids die in their 40s.

These drugs might benefit kids whose genetics predispose them to very high levels of cholesterol. It's better to start them early rather than wait for the devastating symptoms to appear in late middle age.

Only 10% of our cholesterol load is determined by diet. The rest is manufactured in the liver.

Low fat milk is certainly a good idea, the sooner after that first birthday, the better.

[katmondoo]

6. My doctor was going to put me on it and I refused

She got upset but my cholesterol wasn't that high about 200. My sister-in-law took it and now has liver problems. Doctors are too quick to hand out prescriptions today instead of trying to get the patient to try diet first.

[LeftyMom]

7. Maybe we could just get their parents to feed them reasonable food?

:think:

[Iggo]

16. What the...?

Why do you hate America?

:hi:

[Javaman]

22. why does reasonable food hate America? nt

[LeftyMom]

28. Americans clearly hate reasonable food. Unless it's battered, then deep fried. nt

[napi21]

8. That may not be a bad idea in some cases. I think it's been

fairly well documented that high cholesterol problems are closely linked to heridity. My husband & I have been married for 44 years, and both ate the same foods. In fact I probably ate MORE animal fats than he did because I tend to eat more meats and he eats more bread. He had to have a quad bypass 12 years ago and has been on Lipitor for 15 years, and my cholesterol numbers are fine and I take NO meds! His father had high cholesterol numbers & also had to have a bypass.

If they find the beginings of a problem in a youngster, and there is a history of problems in his family history, it might be a good idea to start young with meds.

Believe me, I don't believe in any unnecessary meds for anything, but they're not ALL bad!

[jaxx]

9. Bad idea. Kids won't be listened to about effects.

Those statin drugs have bad side effects. The dr put me on them and within 2 weeks I had terrible muscle pain and a foggy mind. I went off them, it took 3 weeks for the fog to lift, but it did. The muscle pain is still there. The dr put me back on a 5mg dosage to see if I could tolerate it.....I can't. The fog back in less than a week and the muscles intensified. I quit. No more statins for me.....and my numbers weren't high anyway, under 200.

[flvegan]

10. Or...partake in a nutritional diet and get more exercise.

Granted, reading the report quickly seems that the concern is for children that have family histories of CVD, diabetes, etc, I'm still dumbfounded by any doctor with an ounce of nutritional training would see a kid (or anyone) with cholesterol levels that reach the prescription point and not tell them to stop eating meat, eggs and milk.

Some folks naturally have high cholesterol levels, and that may need medical correction. However, I'm pretty certain that many of these problems could be solved by a realistic diet.

[BeHereNow]

11. They have found YET another way to reduce the world population...

The bastards never sleep.
Profit while setting millions more up for early termination.
Sad thing is, many parents will trust their doctors
and go along with it.
Eugenics through big pharma.
BHN

[kestrel91316]

13. My advice comes directly from Michael Pollan's book "In Defense of Food":

Eat food (most of what today's kids eat doesn't qualify).
Not too much (no explanation needed).
Mostly plants (as in fruits, vegetables, a little whole grain, a little vegetable-based oil).

Also: SELL THE VIDEO GAMES. Consider selling the TV or severely restricting its use. If you have any yard at all, plant a vegetable garden and get the kids involved in it. Go biking together. Go walking together.

Get these kids up off their butts and moving around, and feed them right.

Giving them drugs to combat a societal/cultural problem is disgusting.

[conflictgirl]

14. I thought they've never proven that cholesterol drugs actually benefit health

Maybe I'm thinking of some other type of drugs, but I'd swear that I remember hearing that they've never proven that cholesterol-lowering drugs have any benefit in actually preventing heart disease.

[Lance_Boyle]

20. Rather, they haven't shown conclusively that high cholesterol

is a killer. The whole correlation/causation thing goes out the window when there are statins to be sold. But show me the study that says high cholesterol, in the absence of concurrent organic heart/vascular disease, kills people. It ain't there. There's an awful lot of prescribing based on assumption about the correlation, when a causal link between high cholesterol and vascular disease is unproven.

[Hannah Bell]

21. Last time I looked at the research, it was: reduction in cardiac events

but no reduction in overall morbidity/mortality. Unclear if reduction in cardiac events due to cholesterol reduction or reduction of inflammation (in which case anti-inflammatories would provide the same benefit with less risk.)

Number needed to treat to prevent one event: very, very high. No proven benefit to women over 50. Low cholesterol, not high, correlates with death or poor health in older people. About half of cardiac events don't even correlate with high cholesterol. There are some genetic conditions where cholesterol is very high, but heart disease non-existent.

I'm a dietitian; when i worked in hospital I saw so many cases of a supposedly uncommon condition (rhadomyolysis, i.e. muscle pain/wasting)concurrent with statin use i became convinced this side effect was under-reported. One of the statins was recalled for excess deaths for precisely this reason (the heart is a muscle, too).

The treatment guidelines have been repetedly altered to put a "high cholesterol" diagnosis on more people (& to recommend drugs to more, & sooner). In my opinion, with little justification in terms of proven benefit.

Giving statins to kids who are still developing seems to me criminal.

[Iggo]

15. I saw on the idiot news this morning...

...a story, reported all cutesy-like, about how "some say" you have your big fat child's cholesterol checked at age 2.

First thing I thought of was some pharma fat cat sitting in his darkened dungeon going, "Excellent! Excellent!"

[BeHereNow]

17. Your thoughts were correct.

Except the one pharma fat cat was not alone.
Several of our pig congress critters (on both sides of the aisle) who hold stock
in the cartel were saying the same thing.

BHN

[aspergris]

18. Obese kids are generally candidates for parents who need to get a clue

Parents who feed and/or let their kid eat nonstop crap because they are too lazy or too soft to their kids desires are the problem.

Treats are ok - as TREATS. But feeding a kid a steady diet of crap and also letting them sit inside all day instead of getting out and playing...

that's the problem

Drugs are not the answer. Behavior modification is. But that's HARD and pills are EASY!

[jody]

19. Yet, this society continues to criminalize marijuana use. n/t

[Overseas]

23. Let's advertise hard liquor and cigarettes on TV again soon.

Because obviously the thousands of ads on TV urging our kids to snack snack snack on sugar and starch and starch and sugar and oil and snack snack snack are having no effect whatsoever. We deserve it, yeah-- cookies and candy and pizza and chicken and ice cream sundaes and chips and yum yum and yeah, it's fun for everyone !! Every seven minutes ads to eat eat eat-- no effect whatsoever. No need to change TV advertising.

So come on folks, let's get those cigarette ads back on TV. They should never have been restricted in the first place. Hurry up already ! It's all about free choice, baby!

[DemoTex]

25. Might as well get at those tender livers early!

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. My niece is a good example of WHEN it is warranted

Hyperlipidimian runs in the family... the genetic kind

She is thin

She's been on statins since eight or so

No statins she'd be on her way to an early death

There are cases where it is adequate

[Contrary1]

26. I ate tons of "bad" food growing up...

Eggs, pork, whole milk, butter bread, gravy with just about every meal...and we were thin and healthy. The difference was that we had no reason to want to stay inside. No AC, computer, video games. Our old black and white TV got three channels that were viewable.

Twelve full weeks of summer vacation, and we ran every chance we got. Walked a mile to the grocery regularly. It wasn't even referred to as exercise back then.

[SoCalDem]

27. Remove all HFCS from ALL foods, and double the prices of snack foods & sodas

reinstate rigorous gym classes and make recess a physical play time..and those drugs will be unnecessary..

and remove all soda/snack machines from schools..

Put the water fountains back in, and serve real food at lunch time.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

29. Works for me. How about osteoporosis and ED meds as well?