More and more children and young people are being treated with blood fat-lowering drugs to avoid heart disease, new statistics show.
But according to researchers, there are still several thousand children with a hereditary risk of heart attack who do not know that they carry the disease.
– If we had found these patients in time, we could have probably avoided thousands of heart attacks, says Emil Hagström, senior physician at Uppsala Academic Hospital.
If you have the disease familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited form of bad cholesterol in the blood vessels, you have an approximately 20 times higher risk of suffering a heart attack at a young age. Something that can be remedied through early medication, as diet and exercise alone usually do not help.
– The earlier you find children with high cholesterol, the earlier you can start treatment. This reduces the development of atherosclerosis and the risk of heart attack and cardiac death, says Emil Hagström, who is also a researcher at the heart section at Uppsala University.
More and more people are receiving medicine
In recent years, more and more young people have received blood fat-lowering drugs, today it is about almost 1,000 children in Sweden. But despite the fact that the National Board of Health and Welfare recommends that children of parents with hereditary high cholesterol values should be tested, there are still between 5,000 and 10,000 children who are not detected.
– The problem with the disease is that the darkness is so great. If we had found these patients in time, we would have been able to treat them with a couple of simple tablets per day for under a kroner each, and then we would have been able to avoid probably thousands of heart attacks, says Emil Hagström
Melker was tested early
Melker Agnarsson, 11, was already diagnosed at the age of seven. Because many of his relatives had the disease, he was tested early. First he was given advice on diet and exercise.
– You should have plant-based butter, not red milk. You weren’t allowed to eat fried foods or things with a lot of fat in them. Being outside and playing and stuff like that was also good.
But for so many other children with the same disease, living healthy wasn’t enough, and now Melker also takes tablets.
– Sometimes it can be a bit difficult. Although you get used to it because you’ve been doing it for so long, it becomes part of your morning routine. It feels very good that I don’t have to worry about a heart attack, he says.