The Nation : Study Urges More Cholesterol Testing

High cholesterol afflicts more Americans than previously thought, with an estimated 60 million adults having cholesterol levels so high they should seek treatment, federal researchers said. The new estimate shows high blood cholesterol is a major public health problem and underscores the need for people to get their cholesterol levels checked, the researchers said. In the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics used a representative sample of 11,864 people ages 20 to 74 to estimate how many Americans have high cholesterol levels under established guidelines. They calculated that about 36% of all adults ages 20 to 74 “are candidates for medical advice and intervention for high blood cholesterol levels.”