Free fruit to save hearts

New medications, a ban on trans fats, and free fruit and veggies to all schoolchildren. These are some of the efforts discussed in Sweden. 

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  Giving Swedish schoolchildren free fruit and vegetables is the best way to deal with heart problems, according to Lars Rydén, professor of cardiology at Karolinska Institutet.

• New medications, a ban on trans fats, and free fruit and veggies to all schoolchildren. These are some of the efforts discussed at a recent medical conference in order to help save Swedish hearts, as one million Swedes suffer from cardiology problems.

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  Professor of Cardiology Lars Rydén.

• “Preventative measures are much more effective then medications,” said professor of cardiology at Karolinska Institutet Lars Rydén. Recently 600 doctors gathered for a conference in Stockholm in order to discuss new treatments for and preventions of heart problems.

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  Center Party’s Kenneth Johansson, chairman of National Committee at the Swedish Parliament, says it is ultimately up to the individual if he wants to eat junk or not.

• One hot topic was new but expensive blood thinning medication, yet doctors agreed this is not the solution to healing hearts. Rydén pointed out that he thinks Sweden, like other countries in the European Union, ought to offer free fruit and vegetables to school children as a preventative measure. He also thinks Sweden ought to ban trans fats (unsaturated fats, which are rare in living nature but occur in food production processes and are likely found in junk food).

• “Denmark, Iceland and Austria have put a ban on trans fats,” he said. “But in Sweden nothing is happening.” The Center Party’s Kenneth Johansson, chairman of National Committee at the Swedish Parliament, says, “The issue of trans fats is discussed in parliament, but it is possible that we can’t go further there. It is the responsibility of the individual after all.”