BRITAIN’S position at the top of the world heart disease league has little to do with genes and everything to do with the large quantities of concealed fat, sugar and salt in the national diet, writes Lois Rogers.
Results to be announced today from a nine-year, 52-nation study of 27,000 people show heart disease is rarely genetic. Nine out of 10 cases are due to lifestyle.
Experts say Britons do not take much less exercise, smoke more or suffer more stress than the populations of neighbouring countries. But they do eat more poor-quality food, and are becoming significantly fatter and less healthy.
Salim Yusuf, professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada, who led the project which will be revealed at a European Cardiology Society meeting in Munich today, has debunked a number of medical myths.
Doctors believe that genetic susceptibility plays a key role in heart disease. The new study shows genes play hardly any part. Yusuf’s former colleague Peter Sleight, emeritus professor of cardiovascular medicine at Oxford, said: “The food industry has been able to suppress the evidence about its responsibility for ill health. Their tactics are sophisticated. They make the tobacco industry look like children.”