Researchers believe that toddlers should be given a cholesterol test to help prevent heart disease in later life.
A cholesterol test could be carried out at the same time as vaccinations at the age of 15 months.
This is the point at which cholesterol levels start to rise among victims of a condition that can lead to heart attacks in the 20s and 30s.
The parents of children found to be at risk would also be given a cholesterol test to check for the condition called familial hypercholesterolaemia, which is high cholesterol that runs in families.
Affected adults and older children could then be given cholesterol-lowering drugs such as statins.
Adults aged 20 to 39 with the condition have a risk of dying from coronary heart disease that is 100 times more than that of people without the condition.
Familial hypercholesterolaemia affects about one in every 500 people.
The research, reported in the British Medical Journal, examined 13 studies involving 1,907 people with FH, compared with 16,000 healthy people.
It found among children screened between the ages of one and nine that detection rates for FH were an estimated 88 per cent.
Follow-up screening on the parents of a child with FH could also identify the affected parent 96 per cent of the time.
The team proposed testing children aged about 15 months, when they usually have their measles, mumps and rubella jab because it is at this stage that rising cholesterol can be easily distinguished.
Over time, most families at risk would be identified through screening.
If, after a few decades, the uptake of screening were high enough, the need to test children at 15 months of age would disappear because all or nearly all affected individuals would be known and it would be necessary to test only the children of families with the disorder.
The strategy has the potential to prevent a major cause of coronary heart disease in young adults.
If you would like more information on cholesterol testing at home please click here.
