London, Sept 14: A study has revealed that children of 15 months of age should have their cholesterol levels tested to prevent heart disease later in life.

Familial hypercholesterolaemia, meaning high cholesterol running in families, affects about two in every 1000 people and causes very high levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL) or ‘bad cholesterol’ in the blood. And high cholesterol carries a higher risk of death from coronary heart disease.

According to the study published in bmj.com today, if the treatment is done when the level of cholesterol is low, the risk reduces substantially, but there is uncertainty over what screening strategy is likely to be effective.

So, keeping this factor in mind researchers at Barts and the London Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry investigated published studies on total and LDL cholesterol in people with and without familial hypercholesterolaemia to determine the efficiency of screening and the best age to do this.

The researchers identified 13 studies involving 1,907 cases and 16,221 controls and found that the screening was most effective if done in early childhood (1-9 years).

88 percent of affected individuals were detected when the screening was done, while screening newborns and young adults was less effective.

Looking at the result of the analysis, researchers suggested that children should be screened at about 15 months of age and it can be done when they visit their general practice for routine vaccinations.

If there is a case of an affected child, their parents would then also be screened, since; the every affected child would have one affected parent. Treatment to lower cholesterol could then be initiated immediately in the affected parent and delayed in the child until adulthood. (With Inputs from ANI)