Dying from food

SOYMB has previous posted on the food industry and the wide use of salt in our food products. It was pointed out that cuts in the use of salt in foods could reduce deaths by 150,000 in America. Now, in the UK we have the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) saying that unhealthy foods have wreaked a “terrible toll of ill health”.

The organisation says that ministers should consider introducing legislation if food manufacturers failed to make their products healthier.It says “toxic” artificial fats known as trans fats, which have no nutritional value and are linked to heart disease, should be banned.Halving the individual daily salt intake.

Five million people in the country suffering the effects of cardiovascular disease — a “largely avoidable” condition that includes heart attacks, heart disease and stroke — and that it causes 150,000 deaths annually. Nice says 40,000 of these deaths could be prevented.Poorer people have up to a threefold increased risk of heart disease over those who live in more affluent areas of the country. The focus for the Nice committee was safeguarding the population, rather than advising the individual who may have limited options.

Klim McPherson, professor of health epidemiology at Oxford University and chairman of the Nice committee said "Commercial organisations are very good at exploiting people who make choices on price and convenience."
The president of the Royal College of Physicians, Prof Sir Ian Gilmore, said "The profits of private firms ought not to take precedence when compared with the health of the more than four million people at risk in this country."