Treatment of hyperlipidemias in childhood.

Coronary heart disease risk factors can easily be recognized in school children, and even in infancy1,2. It has been proposed that the primary prevention of atherosclerosis might best begin in childhood, a period during which the actual vascular lesion is probably either absent or reversible2. This report is focused on therapy of hyperlipidemias in childhood, with the recognition that there are several effective approaches to normalization of elevated cholesterol and triglyceride. There is as yet, no prospective, longitudinal evidence that normalization of cholesterol and triglyceride levels in childhood will prevent the development and progression of atherosclerosis.