EU conference to target women's heart disease

Cardio health: Women's deaths from heart disease in Europe could be halved if they stopped smoking and improved their diet, a major European conference on women's cardiovascular health will be told today.

The women's Health at Heart conference in Brussels will look at EU-wide measures to counter a disease responsible for 55 per cent of all women's deaths.

Dr Brian Maurer, medical director of the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF), who is attending the conference, said Ireland "is one of the worst countries in the EU in terms of cardiac disease prevalence and death rates".

More than 8,700 people in Ireland died from the disease in 2004. While this is a significant fall on the more than 12,000 deaths in 2000, the number of people diagnosed with the disease has increased rapidly in recent years and now stands at 25,000 per annum.

"Death rates from the disease in Ireland are not falling as rapidly in women, if they are falling at all," Dr Maurer said. "Secondly, women are developing the disease at a younger age and in greater numbers than before."

Dr Maurer said the conference would help the IHF inform its policy decision.

Prof Julia Critchley, a lecturer on International Health Research at Liverpool University, will tell delegates the number of cardiovascular deaths in European women could be halved if they quit smoking and reduced their cholesterol and improved their exercise habits.

She said women were not reducing their exposure to these risks as quickly as men and this was reflected in the lower mortality rate of 43 per cent in men from cardiovascular disease.

Prof Guy de Backer, chairman of the Joint European Societies cardiovascular prevention committee, in his presentation will also deal with the increasing prevalence of the disease.

His research found that while the number of deaths from the disease had fallen slightly, the number of people contracting it was on the increase. This had led to serious cost and capacity consequences for healthcare systems across the member states, he said.

Prof de Backer estimated the cost of cardiovascular disease in Europe at €169 billion per annum or €3,724 per capita.

Lifestyle risk factors were a diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol, smoking and drinking to excess coupled with physical inactivity, he said. Describing cardiovascular disease as a "dynamic epidemic", Prof de Backer called for "comparable and continuous surveillance of the disease and its risk factors in the European community".

Speaking in advance of the conference Markos Kyprianou, Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs, said the Commission would take steps against the underlying causes of cardiovascular disease by tackling physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol abuse.

One MEP has called for legislative backing for support for any new preventative measures.

Georges Andrejevs, MEP and vice-chairman of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee said there was a need for agreed minimum standards for cardiovascular disease prevention across Europe.

The conference will bring together cardiovascular experts from across the EU to share their national experience and research to develop a strategy to respond to the disease.