N.Z. cardiac health report due in March

Press, 30 January 1986, Page 28

N.Z. cardiac health report due in March

PA Wellington A special committee of medical and heart specialists will report to the Government in March on ways to prevent heart disease, says the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett. Commenting on research by the Auckland School of Medicine, Dr Bassett said the Health Department had already been asked to make prevention a priority before the release of findings which show New Zealanders are now more likely to die from heart disease and strakes than Australians.

The research shows

that 15 years ago mortality rates in Australia were up to 10 per cent higher than in New Zealand.

Yet by 1983 heart attack and stroke mortality rates were 15 per cent higher for men and 12 per cent higher for women in New Zealand than in Australia, although mortality rates in both countries had declined.

Dr Bassett said prevention was the best investment and that meant programmes encouraging people to exercise more, stop smoking, eat less and consume less fat 0 more fibre. •

Before making any

official recommendations on lifestyle, it was necessary to have a consensus on advisable changes, he said.

Last October an eightperson advisory committee of medical and heart specialists was set up. It was now looking at ways of preventing heart disease.

The committee, chaired by an Auckland professor of medicine, Dr Derek North, is due to report in March.

Dr Bassett said its findings would shape the Health Department’s heart disease prevention activities.