Do Children Have High Blood Cholesterol?

About 1 in 5 Singaporean have high blood cholesterol, as reported by a 2004 National Health Survey. Perhaps, these people should be blamed for their love of artery-clogging foods. In fact, some of these people are just teenagers. For example, there is a 13 year-old pupil has a cholesterol level of 320 mg/dl, will you believe?

The American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines stipulated that the acceptable cholesterol level for children and teenagers aged 2 to 19 should be below 170 mg/dl, while the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol should be kept under 110 mg/dl. LDL is also known as the bad cholesterol that increases the risk of cholesterol deposits within the walls of blood vessels.

It is not uncommon that children or teenagers, like adults, can have high blood cholesterol. As no official figures are available presently on the number of children with high cholesterol, not many parents are aware of the problem.

High blood cholesterol can be a silent killer because the bad effects do not show immediately but much later in life. Therefore, many parents do not realize the danger behind this. In fact, it has been linked to coronary heart disease and stroke. The earlier a person has high cholesterol, the more health problems he or she will encounter in the future.

In general, high blood cholesterol level is due to excessive consumption of foods high in cholesterol, saturated and trans fats. Nevertheless, genes and family history could also be the cause for high cholesterol in young patients. According to the figures provided by Health Promotion Board (HPB), it affects 9.5 percent of Singaporean children.

A recently study, published by National University Hospital (NUH), on 250 severely obese Singaporean children revealed that more than one-third of these children had high LDL cholesterol levels.

Does this mean that all parents must send their kids for cholesterol screen? Not really, parents should start by watching their child’s diet from the time they were young.

Parents should limit their children’s cholesterol intake to no more than 300 mg per day and saturated and trans fats intake to less than 10 and 1 percent of their total daily calorie intake respectively. These recommendations are for children aged 2 and above.

Moreover, parents should encourage their children to adopt positive healthy practices, such as regular exercise and healthy diet as these can help prevent obesity and other chronic conditions like diabetes later in their life.

Lower Bad Cholesterol with Dietitian’s Support!

It is not uncommon nowadays to find people with high level of cholesterol, even among the young ones. Person having high cholesterol, especially the bad cholesterol or in short LDL, has a greater chance of getting stroke, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Doctors will usually ask you to watch your diet if they find your bad cholesterol level reach a certain high level. Unfortunately, it seems that diet alone usually would not help reduce the cholesterol level for most people. Therefore, as the last resort, doctors would have no choice but to put you on medication to cut down your bad cholesterol.

A new study by the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor reported during March 2008 that with the support from dietitian, some people might be able to bring down their bad cholesterol levels without drugs.

The researchers followed 51 registered dietitians who implemented the 1998 Medical Nutrition Therapy Hyperlipidemia Protocol with their patients. You may ask, “What is this protocol?”

The protocol recommends people to:

- eat more fruits and vegetables,
- eat fish twice weekly,
- take more good fats such as olive oil,
- consume less saturated and trans fat,
- exercise more.

Meanwhile, the patients were supposed to meet with a dietitian for an initial one-hour visit, followed by at least 2 or 3 half-hour appointments. More visits may be recommended by the primary care doctor, if necessary. Dietitians have to check the patients’ blood work at the outset of the study and 3 months later.

The study took in 377 patients who met the criteria. Follow-up data was available for 74.3 percent, while 42.9 percent participated in 3 to 4 visits with the dietitian as recommended.

On average, patients working with dietitians cut their fat consumption to less than 30 percent of total calories. Furthermore, they did lose weight and exercise more.

Among the 175 patients whose initial triglyceride levels were below 400 mg/dL, 44.6 percent of them reported a 15 percent drop in their LDL or reached their goal for reducing LDL.

While the protocol only recommended 3 to 4 weeks between appointments, the actual intervals were in fact longer, ranging from an average of 8 weeks between the first and second appointments to nearly 13 weeks between the third and fourth.

Many patients did not make follow-up appointments, or keep scheduled appointments because of the lack of insurance reimbursement or their inability to pay.

The researchers did have difficulty in carrying out the study. Not many registered dietitians wanted to participate because they could not obtain necessary lab tests or lacked time and administrative support.

How Much Do You Know About Fats and Cholesterol?

Trans fats and saturated fats, as well as their relationship with cholesterol has been a pretty confusing topic for many people. A common belief is that fats will develop cholesterol that is harmful to our body. Unfortunately, this is not correct. In reality, not all fats are bad for the body.

Cholesterol is manufactured naturally in our bodies by our liver. It can also be found in certain foods like eggs, seafood, meats, organ meats and animal products. Taking high volume of dietary cholesterol will increase the risk of many medical disorders including cardiovascular disease, heart disease, high blood pressure.

In general, there are 4 types of fats: mono-unsaturated, poly-unsaturated, saturated and Trans fats. The first 2 unsaturated fats are the healthier ones as they increase our HDL (high density lipoproteins, or what we called the 'good' cholesterol) and decrease LDL (low density lipoproteins, or what we called the 'bad' cholesterol). On the other hand, saturated and Trans fats are bad for our bodies as they increase our LDL. The damage caused by trans fats is even serious because they also decrease our HDL.

Foods such as animal fat, animal skin, animal products such as butter, coconut milk and dairy products are good sources of saturated fats. Trans fats are formed when vegetable oils goes through a process called hydrogenation. As such, products that are labeled 'partially hydrogenated' or 'hydrogenated' vegetable oil in the ingredient list do contain trans fats.

Unsaturated fats can be found in vegetable oils like olive oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, and foods like nuts, avocados and oily fish.

In fact, our bodies still require a certain amount of fats for absorption of vitamins as well as other daily functions. Therefore, we should allocate only 10 per cent of our daily caloric intake for saturated and Trans fats, as recommended by health experts, and should take more foods containing unsaturated fats.

How Does Cholesterol Relate To Fats In Food?

Cholesterol is either formed in our bodies by our livers or acquired from foods like eggs, seafood, meats, organ meats and animal products. If we have too much cholesterol in our body (or more precisely, bad cholesterol), we will be at a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease and other diseases.

Then, what are fats? In general, there are 4 types of fats, namely saturated, mono-unsaturated, polyunsaturated, and trans fats.

The unsaturated fats increase our HDL (high density lipoproteins or the 'good' cholesterol) and decrease our LDL (low density lipoproteins or the 'bad' cholesterol). Trans fats do just the opposite: reduce HDL and raise LDL, and saturated fats are known to raise both HDL and LDL.

Mono-unsaturated fats are found in olives; olive oil; canola oil; peanut oil; cashews, almonds, peanuts and most other nuts; avocados, while poly-unsaturated fat is available in corn, soybean, safflower and cottonseed oils; fish.

Saturated fats can be found in foods like animal fat, animal skin, animal products such as butter, and dairy products. Trans fats are formed when vegetable oil goes through a process known as hydrogenation. Therefore, products that have 'partially hydrogenated' or 'hydrogenated' vegetable oil printed in their ingredient list do contain trans fats.

It is not easy to find a meal without fats when we dine out, especially at fast-food outlets. But we must understand one fact: we do need a certain amount of fats for absorption of vitamins as well as other daily functions. Since unsaturated fats are healthier, our meals should comprise most of this kind of fats. On the other hand, we should cut down the amount of saturated fats and trans fats and they should take up only 10 per cent of our daily caloric intake.

Fat-Rich Meal Can Affect The Health Of Your Heart!

In my previous post titled "Do You Want A Healthy Heart? Watch What You Eat!", I mentioned that research had shown that oily food can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

The bad cholesterol (LDL or low-density lipoprotein) is responsible for the build-up and blockage in the arteries. But our body also has good cholesterol (HDL, high-density lipoprotein), which is considered as being able to to counteract bad cholesterol (LDL), or even prevent heart disease.

According to recent report published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, a study of 14 healthy adults had found that 3 hours after participants were fed a single high-saturated-fat meal, the inner linings of blood vessels in the participants showed a decreased ability to expand. This would therefore affect the blood flow.

It was found that the ability of HDL-cholesterol to prevent inflammation was weakened within 6 hours after the fatty meal. The inflammation is one of the causes that build up the arterial plaque. But on a separate occasion, when participants were fed a meal rich in polyunsaturated fats, the protective quality of HDL-cholesterol in their bodies was actually increased. The number of inflammatory agents were found to be lesser.

In conclusion, when a person consumes a single meal of high saturated fat, his or her normal protective property of HDL is impaired. Conversely, when he or she eats a meal that is high in polyunsaturated fat, the HDL in the body is found to be more protective.

Do You Want A Healthy Heart? Watch What You Eat!

Having a healthy heart is important because if something happens to your heart, you will be in great troubles. A fatal heart attack can end one's life almost instantaneously. Besides regular physical activities and exercises, what you eat into your stomach can have different effects on your heart.

Eating very oily foods can stress your heart! Does it sound familiar, but in your heart, do you believe it?

Take a look at a new research conducted at The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio where the researchers have found that a single high-calorie meal is sufficient to strain the arteries of the heart.

People having a meal that is high in saturated fats could lower their ability of HDL-cholesterol (good cholesterol) to protect against clogged. On the other hand, if a person takes a meal high in polyunsaturated fats, his or her arteries will be protected against a build-up of plaque.

It is already known that saturated fat actually causes formation of plaques in the arterial wall, and these plaques are major cause of heart attack and stroke. The findings of the aforesaid research further explain such mechanism.

An excessive-calorie diet consisting of high amount of total fat and saturated fat will almost guarantee your way to obesity. Why is this so?

Before getting to the answer, let us find out how the food digests in our stomach.

An average meal with a proper serving size of foods including lean meat or fish generally will spend about 2 to 5 hours in the stomach, another 4 to 5 hours in the small intestine and then stay in the large intestine for another 5 to 25 hours.

This chemical process may vary for different kinds of food. Since fat can delay the stomach from emptying, a meal that consists of higher amount of fat can take longer for digestion. If one is lack of exercises or physical activities, the extra fats will be accumulated in the body over time. By now, you should realize why obesity is the definite end result.

Besides heart disease, poor eating habits and high-fat diet can also lead to the risk of contracting other diesease such as cancer and Type 2 diabetes.

In fact, the American Heart Association recommends that one should limit the intake of saturated fats to less than 7 percent of the total daily calories.

Nevertheless, you need not avoid foods that we are enjoying totally. The best way to control the amount of fat, saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet is to eat a variety of foods in moderate amounts.

For example, you can still eat potato chips, which is high in total fat, saturated fat and sodium. Instead of eating a whole bag, you should watch the amount you eat, or simply share among your friends or families. The best approach is to choose a healthier choice such as baked chips. By the way, taking foods high in sodium can lead to a high risk of developing high blood pressure.

You Have Another Good Reason To Limit Your Meat Intake!

To prevent heart disease, one of the advices that you ought to get from doctors and dietitians is to cut down your intake of saturated fat. This means you should take less meat, a good source of saturated fat.

But now, there is another good reason for you to take less meat:

Save the Earth!

Why is this so?

Research showed that 22 per cent of the earth's total emissions of greenhouse gases come from agriculture. This is almost the same as that comes from industry but is more than that of transport. Livestock production, including transport of livestock and feed, actually accounts for nearly 80 per cent of agricultural emissions, mainly in the form of methane, a heat-trapping gas.

Japanese scientists also reported in July 2007 that 1kg of beef generates an equivalent of 36.4kg of carbon dioxide, more than the equivalent of driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

I am not sure if you have heard this before and what your reaction is. But for me, I have never heard this and I do feel shocking when I learnt about this.

Wait... There are some more figures to come...

At present, the global average meat consumption is 100 grams per person per day: each person in rich countries consumes 200 g to 250 g per day but every person in poor countries eats only 20 g to 25 g. In other words, the meat consumed by people in poor countries is only 10 percent of that are consumed by people in rich countries.

A research report recently published on 13 September 2007 by The Lancet suggested that people in rich countries should limit their meat intake to the equivalent of 1 hamburger per person per day to help the global environment.

The researchers actually suggested a 10-percent cut (equivalent to 10 g per day) in global meat consumption by 2050 in order to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture and improve the health of rich and poor nations.

Perhaps we should take less meat from now on not only to help ourselves to prevent heart disease and other diseases but also to help the people in the poor countries. More importantly, we can also help the environment for our next generation!

Let’s Talk About Fats Again – Saturated Fats

Fat is a source of energy found in foods. It provides around 9 calories per g, more than twice the number provided by protein or carbohydrates.

According to WHO, the daily intake of fat should not exceed more than 1/3 of their total energy needs.

Basically, there are three main types of fats: saturated, unsaturated and trans fats.

Saturated Fats are found in animal products like butter, cheese, lard and fatty meats, and some vegetable oils such as coconut and palm oil.

Saturated fats can increase the cholesterol level, which will increase the risk of heart disease. Obesity, another risk factor for heart disease, is likely to occur because of the high calorie content.

Fat and Cholesterol

Fat and cholesterol are not the same. However, both cholesterol and saturated fats in diet may raise blood cholesterol level which may eventually cause heart disease. Therefore, it is recommended that you should take only 15 to 32g of saturated fat and less than 300mg of cholesterol per day. You should avoid fried and oily food and replace saturated fats with poly-unsaturated fats (such as some vegetable and fish oils) and mono-unsaturated fats (such as olive and canola oils).