Increase in deaths from heart disease signals reversal of 20-year trend

AN INCREASE in deaths from heart disease and stroke last year may be the reversal of a 20-year downward trend, the Irish Heart Foundation has warned.

The caution comes after the latest mortality figures from the Central Statistics Office (CS0) revealed that there was a 2.7 per cent increase in deaths from circulatory diseases (including heart disease and stroke) last year.

In 2006, 9,662 people in Ireland died from circulatory diseases. This increased to 9,931 in 2007.

This bucks a trend over the last 20 years where mortality rates from heart disease had been falling, the Irish Heart Foundation said. Over half of all deaths in Ireland were caused by heart disease in 1984; this was reduced to one third by 2005.

Circulatory diseases are the most common cause of death in Ireland, accounting for 35 per cent last year, the CSO figures show. This compares to 28 per cent of deaths due to cancer and 13 per cent due to respiratory diseases.

The heart foundation said it feared the downward trend was in danger of being reversed due to obesity, lack of physical activity, diabetes and hypertension.

The Government, the food industry and parents needed to start taking responsibility for the fight against heart disease, Irish Heart Foundation chief executive Michael O'Shea said yesterday.

"Not enough Irish people are taking adequate exercise, and this combined with the consumption of the wrong type of food is causing our population to increase in weight," he said. Mr O'Shea said smokers were two to three times more likely to have a heart attack than non-smokers and that smoking caused a quarter of all deaths due to heart disease.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times