Cholesterol Drugs In Kids: have we gone too far?

This week's controversial recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to put kids 8 years of age and older on Statins has rocked the parenting and medical worlds to the core, and for a few good reasons:

1. This is an extreme recommendation.
2. We have become a pill pushing society and giving kids more medication and not an easy idea for many of us to pursue for our kids.
3. This recommendation may have hit too close to home in too many people not wanting to see that diet and exercise may not be enough in some kids.
4. We've become a society where we want to fix a problem yet don't want to do the work - or suggest the recommendations. So, we are constantly damned on all fronts.

I'm ambivalent on this one, to be honest. While we are in a health care crisis with some kids, does that mean we leap to a pill? While many kids don't have the most nutritional diets, does that mean we leap to a pill? I'm just not convinced the risk vs. benefit ratio works to the AAP's advantage here. And, as the New York Times article states, many of my colleagues feel similarly.

We are a society of quick fixes and a pill does do that. Pills are not without side effects, however. One of the potential side effects in the Statin group is cognitive and that concerns me. We may lower the cholesterol of some kids but at what price? Learning? Behavior? Sleep? Are those reasonable trade-offs to potentially avoid 1 heart attack - and we are not even certain the use of this drug will do that?

The other issue to consider is the recommendation for "eating better and exercise". Believe me, we've been there and done that. Easy to say, not so easy for too many families to follow. If it were that easy, we wouldn't have so many overweight and obese kids. It may not be easy, but it isn't impossible. We may just have to find a different path for better eating and exercise given our busy lives - find a way that works for our busy lives.

Clearly there is a public health issue we need to address and the time for that is now. But, a pill? That only fixes a number - it doesn't fix the issues leading to the rise in any one number. We need to do better in helping society get healthier. We need to do better in helping families slow down and eat better. We need to help people find more ways to exercise. And, we need to do this based on how people live today, not how we lived as kids or how we want people to live. To me, this is the piece of the puzzle never adequately addressed in public health recommendations. The recommendations always seem out of step with lives of today's families.

The debate will continue - it needs to continue - on whether Statins are the answer for high cholesterol in kids. Until then, let's all look at how our families are eating and moving. That we all can control - and without a pill or our kids' brains becoming dulled.