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Last year, a government-appointed panel urged widespread cholesterol screening for children. It was controversial because of concerns it would lead to more kids being given medicine. Experts say statins should be used in only the worst cases
-- less than 1 percent. Artificial trans fats are known to decrease good cholesterol and increase bad cholesterol. In 2006, the federal government began requiring that packaged foods list the amount of trans fat per serving, a boon for careful shoppers. Meanwhile, a push to take trans fats out of foods gained momentum. New York City banned artificial trans fats in restaurant food in 2008. California in 2010 became the first state to adopt such a ban. Even Crisco, the goopy shortening that was trans fat incarnate, was reformulated to take it out. "I love the idea that reduced use of hydrogenated trans fats might be responsible" for the new study's results, Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition, food studies and public health, said in an email. "If so
-- and as usual it's clear that more research is needed -- it would mean that public health measures like the trans fat ban in New York City are actually doing enough good to be measurable." This is not the first study to suggest a payoff in trans fat policy efforts. The U.S. Department of Agriculture found that from 2005 to 2010, the average trans fat content in bakery items and other foods declined steeply. A small, preliminary CDC study published earlier this year found significant drops in trans fats in white adults between 2000 and 2009.
Despite the good news, experts remain worried. Seventeen percent of U.S. children are obese, perhaps because they are still eating lots of carbohydrates and sugar. That, along with little exercise, can lead to diabetes and heart disease. "We may have a small effect in the right direction from lower cholesterol, but I'm worried it will be overwhelmed by the earlier onset of obesity in younger and younger children," de Ferranti said. "I'm still pretty worried about how many kids are going to wind up patients of adult cardiologists." ___ Online: CDC Web page on cholesterol:
http://www.cdc.gov/cholesterol
[Associated
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