Panel: Every child should get a cholesterol test

Panel: Every child should get a cholesterol test

CHICAGO (AP) — Doctors are recommending that every child be tested for high cholesterol by around age 10 to prevent heart disease later in life.

The advice is in new guidelines from an expert panel appointed by the federal government. These experts say that current testing of children with a family history of heart disease is missing too many kids, and more are at risk because of the rising obesity epidemic.

Doctors say that children should be tested before puberty because cholesterol dips during that time of hormone change and rises later.

The guidelines were released today by the journal Pediatrics.