October 2, 2003

Newsfeed: Rae-Ellen Kavey

Rae-Ellen Kavey, professor of pediatrics, discusses guidelines for heart-healthy children

The American Heart Association (AHA) has released new guidelines for pediatricians to use in helping their patients prevent heart disease. Rae-Ellen Kavey, lead author of the guidelines, says a need for children’s guidelines became apparent when the AHA first released guidelines for adults.

“There was a lot of discussion as to why there were no guidelines for children since it seems logical. The best place to reduce risk is to begin in childhood. So in response to that they got together a working group to pull together all the evidence about risk factors being associated with early evidence for heart disease beginning in childhood, and then to develop guidelines to address each of the risk factors.”

Kavey says the guidelines are divided into two sections.

“One I would call the common sense section. That applies to all children in its recommendations for good health. And it includes a relatively low-fat diet, a very active lifestyle, remaining thin, all of those things. And then the second half of the paper is devoted to identifying those children who are at high risk for early cardiovascular disease. And those would be children who have high blood pressure, who have diabetes, or who have high cholesterol.”

Kavey says an unhealthy childhood can have far-reaching consequences.

“The lifestyle you have in childhood is the lifestyle you have as an adult. The easiest example is to look at what people like to eat. No matter what your culture, you like the food that you were offered as a child. And that liking persists throughout your whole life. So if we can encourage children to adopt healthy eating behaviors right from the outset, then we aren’t trying to retrain them into a better diet. They already have a good diet.”

Kavey believes the guidelines will be very useful for physicians.

"I think the area in the paper that’s going to be useful for pediatricians and family practitioners is the information about what to do to identify specific risk factors in children who are at risk. So it gives you guidelines for managing obesity, for diagnosing and managing diabetes, for diagnosing hypercholesterolemia, diagnosing hypertension and how to manage it. And it’s all in one spot.”

—Samira Puskar

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