prevalence of dyslipidemia among elementary school children in birjand, east of iran, 2012

background : various studies have indicated that dyslipidemia starts in childhood. there is a relationship between the concentration of blood lipids and atherosclerosis. in this study, we assessed the prevalence of dyslipidemia in elementary school children. methods: this cross-sectional study was performed on 1,626 (882 girls and 744 boys) elementary school children aged between 6 and 11 years in birjand in 2012. samples were selected through multistage random sampling. the lipid profiles (i.e., cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol [hdl-c], low-density lipoprotein cholesterol [ldl-c]) of the subjects were measured after 12 hours’ fasting. the definition of dyslipidemia was based on the criteria of the american children academia in 2011.   results: dyslipidemia (at least one abnormal level of a serum lipid) was detected in 31% of the children (31.3% of the girls vs. 30.6% of the boys). total cholesterol was ≥ 200 mg/dl in 13.4% of the children, ldl-c was ≥ 130 mg/dl in 8.5%, hdl-c was < 40 mg/dl in 11.3%, and triglyceride was ≥ 130 mg/dl in 15.3%. the prevalence of hypertriglyceridemia was significantly higher in the females than in the males (16.3% in the girls vs. 13.8% in the boys; p value = 0.01) - while hypercholesterolemia (12.2% in the girls vs. 14.9% in the boys; p value = 0.16), high ldl-c (8.5% in the girls vs. 8.5% in the boys; p value = 0.05), and low hdl-c (12.7% in the girls vs. 9.5% in the boys; p value = 0.1) were not significantly different between the two sexes. conclusion: the prevalence of dyslipidemia was high in the school children in birjand and, thus, requires preventive measures.