Report aims at healthier hearts

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 27

Report aims at healthier hearts

PA Wellington A new report has advocated stronger action against smoking, “healthy food” labelling, thinner people, and healthier lifestyles to combat the nation’s biggest killer, heart disease. The report, released by the Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, told people to eat less fat (especially saturated fat), more fibre, more vegetables, fruit, and wholemeal bread. The report, prepared by a Ministerial advisory committee of medical professors, health officials, doctors, and specialists, will be referred to the Board of

Health. It recommended no smoking, heavier taxing of tobacco products — by the rate of inflation plus 5 per cent for each of the next five years — and tobacco advertising banned by 1990. The authors wanted the proportion of overweight or obese people reduced from 50 per cent of the population to 25 per cent by the year 2000. The report advocated regular physical activity. It wanted the public to understand the importance of moderate drinking — four single drinks a day or fewer. Contraceptive pills, used by 220,000 to 230,000

New Zealanders, posed a slight but significant risk of stroke and coronary disease, particularly for women over 35 and those who smoked, the report said. Cardiovascular disease (including heart attacks, strokes, rheumatic heart disease and congenital heart disease) killed 12,000 people a year in New Zealand, one-third of them aged under 70. Cardiovascular disease was responsible for 48 per cent of all deaths, it said. Heart attack alone was the commonest killer. It caused 30 per cent of each year’s deaths and strokes 12 per cent.