BMJ  2005;331:188-189 (23 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7510.188

Commentary

Will Europe's agricultural policy damage progress on cardiovascular disease?

¹ European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Trends in cardiovascular disease in Europe have shown an east-west divide for over 30 years. Rapid declines in the European Union contrast with stagnant or rising trends in Russia and central and eastern Europe, with some notable exceptions, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, where rates have fallen since the 1990s.^{1 2} These improvements are attributed primarily to improved nutrition,^{1 2} which can be traced to the economic transition that followed political change in the late 1980s.

In Poland many food subsidies, in particular for animal fats, were abolished. Wider availability and lower prices for unsaturated fats and fruits caused rapid dietary changes. Zatonski and Willett explore the impact of these changes, suggesting that the reduction of over a third of coronary heart disease in Poland between 1990 and 2002 can be attributed mainly to increased consumption of polyunsaturated fats, with sustained reduction in saturated fats.¹ They estimate that the small . . . [Full text of this article]

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