A new study published in the journal Pediatrics suggests current guidelines for screening children for high cholesterol may be missing some youngsters who could benefit from treatment and that universal screening may be beneficial.

According to the Wall Street Journal, researchers in West Virginia tested the cholesterol levels of more than 20,000 fifth grade children. They found that nearly 10 percent of children who wouldn’t be checked under the current guidelines had abnormally high levels of LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, and about 1.7 percent had readings high enough to be candidates for drug treatment.
Current recommendations say doctors should check cholesterol in children and adolescents when parents or grandparents have been diagnosed with heart disease prior to age 55, when family history isn’t known, or when a parent has total cholesterol over 240.

Researchers say many of the children who wouldn’t be screened under these national guidelines could benefit from a healthier diet, increased exercise or cholesterol-lowering medications.

Among the herbs and nutritional supplements believed to help lower cholesterol are fish oil, flaxseed, garlic, blond psyllium, guggulipid extract, green tea extract and beta sitosterol.