One in three kids with treacherously high cholesterol is missed by existing screening recommendations, a new study has suggested.

Kids with LDL ‘bad ‘cholesterol levels of 160 mg/dL or higher are running a risk of type 2 diabetes and heart attacks in early adulthood, notes William Neal, MD, Professor of pediatrics at West Virginia University, Morgantown.

It is very necessary that such kids be given medical attention at the earliest.

Those with a genetic propensity for very high cholesterol which is around one in 500 kids need be given treatment. To find them, it's suggested that pediatricians proffer cholesterol screening to kids whose parents or grandparents may have or had very high cholesterol and/or heart problems.

But the reality is that not many such kids get tested or screened.

Neal said that a lot of parents at times said that they did not even have any idea that their kids could be suffering from high cholesterol problem.

So Neal and contemporaries offered all-inclusive screening, as well as blood cholesterol tests, to every fifth-grade child in West Virginia.

Astonishingly, more than 70% of the 20,266 kids who were screened would have fit for routine cholesterol screening, as per existing National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) guiding principle.