Will Europe's agricultural policy damage progress on cardiovascular disease?

The experience of Poland is consistent with epidemiological and clinical evidence indicating that mortality due to coronary heart disease can be reduced by partly replacing dietary saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats while maintaining a low intake of trans fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fat reduces serum concentrations of low density cholesterol, but this cannot account for the size and rapidity of changes in coronary mortality in Poland. A higher intake of polyunsaturated fat also improves endothelial function, reduces platelet aggregability, and reduces ventricular fibrillation. The net effect can therefore be appreciated only by evaluating coronary end points. Increased intakes of polyunsaturated fat also probably explain most of the major declines in coronary mortality in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia over several decades. Both omega 3 fatty acids and omega 6 fatty acids seem to contribute to reductions in coronary risk. According to statistics from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, w2 the increase in polyunsaturated fat in Poland during the 1990s was primarily from rapeseed and to a lesser degree from soya bean oil; intake of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acid would therefore have increased, making it difficult to distinguish their relative contributions to the drop in mortality. Statistics from the Food and Agricultural Organisation do not consider changes during processing; but a conscious effort was made in Poland to minimise the trans fat content of margarines made from these oils.