Safety of the American Heart Association Step 1 Diet in childhood

Abstract

Can we totally answer the question of the safety of the American Heart Association Step 1 Diet in children over the age of 2 years? Available evidence certainly points to this diet as being safe and not harmful to growing children. A major concern of cholesterol-lowering diets is the misapplication of nutritional guidelines. However, this concern is not exclusive to cardiovascular related nutrition. Therefore, we feel confident that this diet can be implemented in the general population without any adverse effects on growth and development in North American children. It seems prudent to continually monitor children in different settings as is being currently evaluated in certain ongoing studies such as the Dietary Intervention Study in Children (DISC). The DISC program is monitoring children's growth, development, and nutritional status to insure no long-term adverse effects of Step 1 Diets. The focus of future strategies and investigations should be to identify effective methods for the dissemination of accurate nutritional information. Proper education via school programs, the various forms of media, and instructions from educated allied health professionals may all play a major role. It is essential that a variety of strategies be used to provide information and guidance to the general population and to families with children who have high blood cholesterol levels.