DALLAS — When diet and exercise fail to lower cholesterol in children with high-risk lipid abnormalities, statins should be first-line drug therapy, declared the American Heart Association in a new scientific statement. Brian W. McCrindle, M.D., M.P.H., who chaired the AHA committee that wrote the statement, published online in Circulation, Journal of the American Heart Association, said guidelines issued a decade ago by the National Cholesterol Education Program don’t address the use of statins in children. In the intervening years several trials in children with familial hypercholesterolemia have shown the use of statins had similar safety and effectiveness as in adults, said Dr. McCrindle, a pediatrician at the University of Toronto and a cardiologist at the Hospital for Sick Children there. Currently, lovastatin, simvastatin, pravastatin and atorvastatin have pediatric labeling from the FDA on the basis of clinical trials performed in children with familial hypercholesterolemia. The AHA said there is now definitive evidence that the atherosclerotic disease process begins in childhood, and the rate of progression is greatly increased by lipid abnormalities and their severity. But ‘if you lower cholesterol in these kids, you can improve the function of their arteries and reverse early atherosclerotic […]