IRELAND’S MAIN DOCTORS’ organisations are backing an Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) call to impose mandatory limits on salt in bread and other process foods to tackle cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease remains one of the top causes of premature death and disability in Ireland, accounting for 8,753 or 26.5% of all deaths in 2021, according to the IHF. 

An IHF position paper, compiled by UCC Professor Ivan Perry, recommends radical action – similar to Ireland’s 2004 ban on smoking in the workplace – to deal with cardiovascular diseaseand other fatal diseases.

The paper proposes mandatory limits on the salt content of bread and processed foods, a complete online ban on marketing of high fat, sugar and salt food and drinks and an increase in the legal age of tobacco sales from 18 to 21.

Professor Perry’s paper is being supported by the Irish Health Promotion Alliance (IHPA) – a new coalition launched to highlight the impact cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes can have.

Members include the Irish Heart Foundation, Irish College of General Practitioners, Irish Medical Organisation, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Irish Cancer Society, Alcohol Action Ireland.

A new national cardiovascular policy is also needed after the last one expired four years ago, the IHF has said. 

The five core risk factors for CVD and many chronic diseases, Professor Perry said, are smoking, physical inactivity, poor diet, obesity and excessive alcohol consumption.

The groups support the paper’s call for greater political will to implement population-based strategies to prevent the onset of disease.

“We do not do health well in Ireland and have an illness service rather than a health service,” said Janis Morrissey, the Irish Heart Foundation’s director of health Promotion, information and training and IHPA chairperson.

“We need to change the narrative away from hospitals and waiting lists, and away from campaigns that focus on individual behaviours and so-called lifestyle choices.”

She said the workplace smoking ban improved everybody’s health, proving the Government’s ability to stand up to the big tobacco lobby – and which it now needs to repeat in other sectors.