CORONARY artery disease continues to be the main cause of death in Cyprus, Health Minister Dina Akkelidou said yesterday.
Despite this fact, more than half of Cypriot children under the age of 18 are overweight and one third do not take regular exercise, she said.
Akkelidou was speaking at a news conference yesterday marking the beginning of this year’s Heart Disease Prevention week focusing on “proper nutrition”.
She said that although Cypriots were aware of the causes of cardiovascular diseases – such as smoking, the lack of physical exercise, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes – very few chose to lead healthy lifestyles.
“A diet rich in fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fats, salt and sugars, together with an active lifestyle are among the key measures to combat cardiovascular diseases, and other chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and obesity,” the Health Minister said. Akkelidou said experts recommend a balanced diet that limits fat to between 15 and 30 per cent of total daily energy intake and saturated fats to less than 10 per cent of this total. Carbohydrates should provide the bulk of energy requirements – between 55 and 75 per cent of daily intake – and free sugars should remain beneath 10 per cent. Protein should make up a further 10-15 per cent of calorie intake and salt should be restricted to less than five grams a day. Intake of fruit and vegetables should be pumped up to reach at least 400 grams a day, she said.
“The encouraging message is that this worrying increase in cardiovascular diseases can be slowed down if every one of us adopts a proper, healthy way of life,” she said. But, although it was the public’s responsibility to avoid harmful health factors, the state also had an obligation to inform people of the healthiest way to live so they could make conscious decisions to live properly.
Leading cardiologist Dr Pambis Nicolaides added that cardiovascular diseases were a “national health problem” and that effective prevention campaigns had to be “methodical, continuous, systematic and long-term” in order to be effective. He added the focus should lie with youngsters after alarming statistics highlighted 19 per cent of primary school age children were already overweight.
