Durham, N.C. - According to the American Heart Association, almost half the U.S. population has high, or borderline high, cholesterol levels. High cholesterol is one of the leading risk factors for heart disease, stroke and other dangerous conditions. Even more alarming is that we're seeing a growing number of children with elevated cholesterol levels, often accompanied by obesity and early-onset diabetes. Medical guidelines typically recommend that cholesterol screening begin at age 18, but many physicians, including Dr. Michael Blazing, say that's too late.

"When you're born, typically your cholesterol should be in the 60s. By the time we get to 18, it's in the 140s, on average in the United States. I'm talking about the 'bad' cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, here."

Blazing, director of the Cardiac Outpatient Clinic at Duke University Medical Center, says diet and lifestyle changes are vital to early disease prevention, and he says it's never too early to start.

"I say you start from birth, but you start from birth by having a good, healthy lifestyle - watching your weight, watching how much you eat and then what you eat, with the 'how much' being more important to me than the 'what.'"