Abstract
Hypercholesterolemic children are reported to be increasing in Japan owing to dietary change. To investigate the effects of family histories of cardiovascular diseases and habits of daily food intake on serum lipid levels and also to investigate the difference in physical growth rate according to cholesterol levels, questionaires were given to 157 third year girl students of junior high schools and their parents in the town of Nagakute in the suburbs of Nagoya city. Bloodsamples were collected from all the girl students.
The mean total cholesterol concentration of 159mg/dl and the frequency of hypercholesterolemic children (total cholesterol≥200mg/dl) of 5.7% were similar to previous results from other areas in Japan. There was no apparent relationship between family history and serum cholesterol levels. The hypercholesterolemic students ate vegetables less frequently and confectioneries more frequently than normocholesterolemic students.
The hypercholesterolemic students had larger Rohrer's indexes since entrance into elementary school and had earlier growth spurts as well as slow downs of body growth and earlier onsets of menarche than normo- or hypocholesterolemic students.
