MONONGALIA COUNTY -- The American Academy of Pediatrics has released new guidelines recommending that doctors prescribe cholesterol-fighting medicine to children as young as eight to prevent future heart problems. Nine-year-old Angel Starkey found out she had high cholesterol when her grandmother took her for a physical after her mother died at an early age of a heart attack. Starkey's family has a history of heart disease. Her cholesterol was twice as high as the normal range and with a family history of heart problems, she was a perfect candidate to start taking statins to help lower it.

"If the bad cholesterol is approximately twice the normal or greater, one should consider using cholesterol lowering medicines or statins, which is frequently used in adults but also in children to prevent the laying down of fatty streaks in their arteries and other blood vessels which could lead to early heart attacks," says WVU Pediatric Cardiologist Dr. William Neal. Neal agrees with the American Academy of Pediatrics and has been treating patients like Starkey for several years now. Starkey has been taking the cholesterol-fighting medicine Pravachol for three years and her cholesterol is now at a normal range. "Treatment guidelines would apply to relatively few or about 1% of children who have a genetic predisposition to early heart disease as adults," says Neal. Neal says the best way to prevent heart disease is to lead a healthy lifestyle, eat a nutritious diet low in fat, and get plenty of physical activity