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135,000 European lives could be saved annually if fruit and vegetable intakes are increased to 600 grams per day. Important policy report from the European Heart Network.
Fruit and vegetable policy and the burden of cardiovascular disease
135.000 European lives could be saved annually if fruit and vegetable intakes are increased to 600 grams per day
Karen Lock and Joceline Pomerleau from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has prepared this very important report for the European Heart Network (EHN). The report is titled Fruit and vegetable policy in the European Union: its effect on the burden of cardiovascular disease and it is a master piece in policy documents that is very likely to impact European agricultural policies.
It is recommended that similar reports are being prepared in other regions of the world also.
In the report it is stated that low fruit and vegetable intake in the EU is a major cause of disability and death due to coronary heart disease and stroke. If all 25 countries in the expanded EU were able to increase fruit and vegetable intake to the minimum recommended levels of 400 g per person per day, this could prevent up to 7% of CHD and 4% of stroke. However, it must be remembered that 400 g per day is the lowest dietary goal. If people across the EU started to consume the same amounts of fruit and vegetables as are eaten by the highest consuming countries such as Spain or Italy, we might be able to reduce the risk of CHD by up to 18% and stroke by 11%. This could prevent over 135 000 deaths from CVD each year.
The report points out that withdrawal of produce from the market at certain levels and the use of import tariffs needs to be changed.
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EHN describes the report using this way:
There is a huge burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Europe. CVD is responsible for 1.9 million (42% of the total) deaths in the European Union per year (Petersen, Peto et al. 2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) World Health Report 2003 reported that CVD makes up 16.7 million (29.2%) of total worldwide deaths, while in the European region CVD was responsible for between 26.8% and 55.8% of total deaths (World Health Organization 2003). Although CVD mortality and incidence have been falling over the last 20 years in most northern, southern and western European countries, they are rising in many central and eastern European countries. CVD remains the leading cause of death in women in all countries of Europe, and in men for all countries except France and San Marino (Petersen, Peto et al. 2005).
Cardiovascular risk factors are well known and mostly amenable to change. Public health policies aimed at reducing rates of cardiovascular diseases have typically emphasized the traditional risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol and physical inactivity. Dietary interventions have tended to focus on reducing consumption of fat, in particular saturated fat, and salt. In the past less policy attention has been given to the impact of fruit and vegetable consumption. However, this is of growing importance as the nutrition transition, occurring in all but the poorest countries of the world, is resulting in the replacement of traditional plant-based diets rich in fruit and vegetables by diets rich in animal fats, salt and sugar, and low in complex carbohydrates (Popkin 2002). Dietary patterns across Europe, which once displayed cultural differences, are now converging.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effect of the EU Common Agricultural Policy fruit and vegetable regime on the burden of CVD.
Source: www.ehnheart.org |
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