It is not often that the medical journal, The Lancet, describes new research findings as : "the most important and far-reaching results for the treatment and prevention of heart disease and stroke that we have seen in a generation".
Today's Heart Protection Study findings will impact on doctors prescribing, and patients treatment. The breakthrough indicates that all patients at increased risk of heart attack or stroke - even if their cholesterol levels are normal or low - will benefit from a significant one-third reduction in the risk of future heart attack or stroke if they take the medication over a five-year period.
What are the implications of the research for the State? It places even more pressure on the Department of Health to deliver on the 1999 Cardiovascular Strategy. One of its key recommendations was the setting up of a programme of secondary heart disease prevention in which people at greater risk of heart attacks and stroke would be intensively monitored and treated. Three years after the strategies publication and with even greater demonstration of its need we are still awaiting its implementation.
The Government must also deliver on its promises; specifically a commitment to fund the National Cardiovascular Strategy by providing a total of 190 million euro over a five-year period. Statins must be declared budget neutral by the Department of Health, so that their wide prescription will not affect hospital and general practice drug budgets.
However, prevention is always better than cure. We should not rely totally on treatment breakthroughs such as the one announced today. We have an obligation to avoid becoming a high risk cardiac patient in so far as we can. Good eating habits, regular exercise and a responsible lifestyle will help prevent diabetes and vascular disease. Many of these habits begin in childhood and a proposal by the Irish Heart Foundation to commence a heart disease prevention programme for children deserves further consideration. It is by such action that Government can best influence individual lifestyles in a true spirit of prevention.