(Press-News.org) The Family Heart Foundation, a leading research and advocacy organization, announced the online publication of recommendations from a multidisciplinary panel in the Journal of Pediatrics to promote the early identification of children living with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). A common life-threatening genetic condition that causes high cholesterol from birth, FH can lead to premature heart attacks and heart disease, if it is not diagnosed until adulthood. Despite national guidelines established in 2011 by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the prevalence of pediatric universal lipid screening remains low, leaving the majority of affected children in the United States at high risk of heart disease decades earlier than those who have not inherited the condition.
The manuscript, titled “Accelerating Guideline Recommended Universal Pediatric Lipid Screening: Launch of the LEAD Pediatric Initiative,” highlights strategies that could lead to improved universal guideline-recommended screening implementation. The Family Heart Foundation established the Leveraging Evidence and Data (LEAD) for Pediatric Cholesterol Screening Initiative last year to address current challenges that serve as friction points in providing life-saving screening. The Family Heart Foundation engaged national experts and leveraged feedback from the FH population in the U.S. to identify barriers and develop evidence-based recommendations to improve universal lipid screening outcomes from the perspectives of patients/families, clinicians, and healthcare systems.
“Every child in America between the ages of 9 and 11 years of age should get a simple blood test to screen their LDL cholesterol for a serious genetic condition called familial hypercholesterolemia,” said Katherine Wilemon, founder and chief executive officer of the Family Heart Foundation. “Many times, families do not understand that the cardiovascular disease that runs through their family for generations can be managed with early diagnosis. The publication in the Journal of Pediatrics lays out concrete actions that can be taken, and on which we have formed partnerships to support families and improve care for children."
Data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and in Pediatrics, indicates that only 11% of youth in the U.S. between the ages of 9 and 21 had documented lipid screening, and 30 to 60% of youth with dyslipidemia may be missed by targeted screening alone compared to universal lipid screening.
“Many clinicians do not understand the reason for pediatric lipid screening guidelines that were primarily developed to identify FH, a genetic condition designated by the World Health Organization in 1998 as a public health concern,” said Laurence S. Sperling, MD, FACC, FACP, FAHA, MASPC, chief medical officer of the Family Heart Foundation, Katz professor in Preventive Cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine, and professor of Global Health at Rollins School of Public Health. “Early and aggressive cardiovascular disease can be prevented with an FH diagnosis in a child, leading to immediate and appropriate treatment. The goal of LEAD is to significantly impact missed opportunities to save hundreds of thousands of young lives from being cut short or burdened by early cardiovascular disease. The tools created by a working group representing patient, families, clinicians, and health systems as part of the Family Heart Foundation’s LEAD initiative and outlined in the Journal of Pediatrics will increase understanding among clinicians and parents about the importance of universal screening.”
The journal publication was simultaneously highlighted at the annual Family Heart Foundation Global Summit in Atlanta, in which the findings were shared with medical experts, policy makers, and industry leaders from around the world.
About the Family Heart Foundation
The Family Heart Foundation is a nonprofit research and advocacy organization. The Foundation is a pioneer in the application of real-world evidence, patient-driven advocacy, and multi-stakeholder education to help prevent heart attacks and strokes caused by familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) and elevated lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), two common genetic disorders that have an impact across generations. The Family Heart Foundation conducts innovative research to break down barriers to diagnosis and management of inherited lipid disorders; educates patients, providers, and policy makers; advocates for change; and provides hope and support for families impacted by heart disease and stroke caused by FH, HoFH, and elevated Lp(a). The organization was founded in 2011 as the FH Foundation. For more information, visit FamilyHeart.org and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
# # #
Media Contact:
Juliet Babros
310-375-7870
juliet@merrymancommunications.com
END
The trillions of microbes that live in the human gut may play a bigger role in health than previously thought, according to a new research by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The article, published in September 2025 in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, explores how gut bacteria interact with human genes in ways that could shape disease risk, aging and even future medical treatments.
The review highlights how the gut microbiome (the collection of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in the digestive system) can affect epigenetics, the process that turns genes on or off without changing the DNA itself. These changes happen through chemical tags ...
Long baleen whale mothers are more likely to have female calves than males, according to a new study led by the University of Washington. The findings contradict a popular evolutionary theory postulating that strong mammals benefit more from birthing males.
In 1973, Robert Trivers and Dan Willard proposed that fit female mammals can improve their odds for grandchildren by having males. Large strong mothers will raise large strong calves that can outcompete other males for mates. But, according to the theory, female fitness is less consequential. The studies backing this argument focused ...
What if we told you that the plastic shopping bag from last week’s grocery run could one day help detect toxic metals in drinking water? Sounds like science fiction? Think again. A dazzling new breakthrough led by Dr. Indriana Kartini from the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, is doing exactly that—turning plastic waste into glowing nanomaterials that can sense pollution in water. And yes, it’s as cool as it sounds.
The Plastic Problem, Reimagined
Every year, millions of tons of plastic bags pollute our oceans, clog landfills, and linger in ecosystems for centuries. But what if this stubborn ...
How fat is distributed in people’s bodies could make a difference to their risk of certain cancers, according to new research led by the University of Bristol. The international study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) today [24 September].
Scientists have already shown that having obesity increases a person’s risk of developing certain cancers. Obesity is usually measured using body mass index (BMI), but growing evidence – particularly from heart health research – suggests that BMI ...
(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – September 23, 2025) Natural systems such as CRISPR-associated transposons (CASTs) offer a targetable, one-step way to edit genomes. However, adapting them for biomedical applications has been challenging. To address this limitation, scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital designed a screening approach to measure efficiency and specificity for thousands of CAST variants accurately. This high-throughput approach allowed the researchers to rapidly optimize promising candidate ...
Drinking any amount of alcohol likely increases the risk of dementia, suggests the largest combined observational and genetic study to date, published online in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.
Even light drinking—generally thought to be protective, based on observational studies—is unlikely to lower the risk, which rises in tandem with the quantity of alcohol consumed, the research indicates.
Current thinking suggests that there might be an ‘optimal dose’ of alcohol for brain health, but most of these studies have focused on older people and/or didn’t differentiate between former and lifelong non-drinkers, complicating efforts ...
BMJ Group has retracted research suggesting that small daily quantities of apple cider vinegar might help people who are overweight or obese to lose weight.
The small clinical trial was published in the open access journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health in March 2024 and its findings press released. The study findings generated widespread international attention at the time, and continue to be frequently referred to in media coverage.
The retraction was prompted by concerns raised about the quality of the work, ...
There’s been a significant rise in the use of low and alcohol-free drinks to curb alcohol intake among ‘risky drinkers’ over the past 5 years in England, Wales, and Scotland, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.
The proportion of those using them to make serious attempts to cut down their alcohol intake rose from 35% in 2020 to 44% in 2024, while those using them in any attempt to cut down increased from 26% to 39%.
The trends were especially noticeable ...
Frequent exercise doesn’t just strengthen the heart – it also changes the nerves that control it, according to new research which could guide more targeted and effective care for common heart problems.
The study, led by the University of Bristol (UK), shows for the first time that moderate aerobic training reshapes nerves that drive the heart, and affects them on each side of the heart differently. The research is published in the journal Autonomic Neuroscience today (Wednesday, 24 September).
Findings ...
Saturday 27th September marks the centenary of the birth of Sir Robert Edwards, who with colleagues Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy oversaw the conception and birth of the world’s first IVF baby in 1978.(1) It was a breakthrough in reproductive medicine which would bring immeasurable benefits to people with infertility and whose demographic importance today is greater than ever.
Now, from various reports published by this journal, we can confidently say that the global impact of IVF continues to grow in terms of children conceived and the extent of its use. There are few causes of infertility which today are not amenable to treatment while ...
