Prevalence of dyslipidemia in children from 2 to 9 years old

ABSTRACT Objective: Analyze the occurrence of dyslipidaemia and associated factors in children aged 2 to 9 years. Method: Cross-sectional study, carried out with 700 children, in a region of Northeast Brazil. For comparison of means, Student’s t test was used; and, for the comparison of medians, the Mann-Whitney test. Results: A prevalence of dyslipidaemia of 68.4% was found. In isolation, the majority had a level of: total desirable cholesterol (386; 55.1%), undesirable lipoprotein cholesterol (376; 53.7%), low density lipoproteins - desirable cholesterol (514; 73.4%) and desirable triglyceride (509; 72.7%). In the final multivariate model, only the variable “preschool age” was significant (prevalence ratio = 1.14), indicating that these children are more likely to have dyslipidaemia than those of school age. Conclusion: An association was found between dyslipidaemia and preschool age. The need for programs and strategies to better understand this problem is indicated, in addition to preventing early coronary diseases.