Cholesterol: Myth vs Reality?

Of the four articles about cholesterol in the April 1993 issue of AJDC, two present new data. Mietus-Snyder et al¹ report that nutritional counseling in a pediatric lipid clinic had virtually no effect on the children's serum lipid levels: the average change in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels was an increase of 0.03 mmol/L (1 mg/dL). Bachman et al² report that, even in their health maintenance organization setting where all services were offered at no cost to patients, most families did not comply with recommendations for cholesterol testing and treatment. To identify 25 children at "high risk," they reviewed more than 1000 questionnaires, measured 369 cholesterol levels (160 subjects refused testing) and performed 58 full lipid panels (35 subjects refused follow-up testing). The 25 children with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were then invited to attend a nutritional program. Sixteen of the 25 children did not attend any of