What’s wrong with a good heart attack ?

It seems to me never a day goes by when we are not hearing about the risk of having a heart attack. Turn on the box or pick up a newspaper and the grim reaper is on the way. We all eat too much, we are all too sedentary, too much booze and street meds, in short we are all doomed and a heart attack is coming your way soon. Personally I am looking forward to a heart attack ! Not this week, not this year, but if I check out with a massive heart attack I’ll be chuffed. Think about it, a short time of crippling pain and the lights go out. If that sounds grim, look at the alternatives. The three big killers are heart disease, cancer and increasingly dementia. A heart attack looks like the best option to me. Having said that the lowcarb naysayers tell us we will be going down with every medical condition known to man. From scurvy to yellow jack, from osteoporosis to intestine bursting constipation. This week I hear the good people at NICE are having a ninety-nine change hands moment. It now transpires oily fish is a no no, more bread is the answer, and dump that butter, honest I kid you not !

“Heart attack victims may no longer be advised to eat oily fish to prevent them from having another attack.

New draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) suggests that the impact an oily fish diet may have on preventing further heart attacks or strokes “could be minimal”. Victims are advised to eat two or three portions of oily fish, such as herring, mackerel and sardines, every week. But if the guidance comes into force they will no longer be told to eat oily fish or to take omega-3 fatty acid capsules or omega-3 fatty acid food supplements for the prevention of further heart attacks.  The guidance, which is now open to consultation, does advise sufferers to eat a Mediterranean diet — including more bread, fruit, vegetables and fish, less meat and to replace butter and cheese with products based on plant oils. A Nice spokesman said: “New evidence shows that the risk of further cardiovascular events such as heart attacks or strokes, is very different today because of the new treatments that are now available.”

Did you spot the  ‘replace butter’ with ‘products based on plant oils’ ? when I read that, my bullshit detector started ringing. Reading on ‘Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, added: “It has been six years since the last heart attack guidelines were published and treatment of heart attacks has changed substantially.”  So, what’s changed so drastically in the last six years ? Has oily fish suddenly become a killer ? Has the human heart changed so much ? We need to be told ! One last point, The British Heart Foundation has just partnered up with, you guessed it, Flora Margarine

Have a nice not NICE weekend.

Eddie

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