Tens of thousands of deaths from heart disease and stroke could be prevented each year simply by eating healthier food, experts said today.
New guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) suggests that small dietary changes, such as reducing salt and saturated fats, would dramatically decrease the number of lives lost to cardiovascular disease.
And it said small changes could translate into massive improvements in public health, saving millions of pounds a year.
Nice has set out a series of measures designed to make it easier for people to live a healthier lifestyle.
Experts are calling on the food industry to ensure levels of salt and saturated fats are reduced across the board to cut the “huge numbers of unnecessary deaths”.
And they said trans fats, which have been shown to increase the risk of heart disease and are classified as toxic by the World Health Organisation, should be eliminated from food altogether.
Professor Mike Kelly, public health director at Nice, said the guidance aimed to reduce the “terrible toll”.
“This isn’t about telling individuals to choose salad instead of chips – it’s about making sure that the chips we all enjoy occasionally are as healthy as possible,” he said.
“That means making further reductions in the salt, trans fats and saturated fats in the food we eat.”
Nearly 6million people in the UK are living with the disabling effects of cardiovascular disease, putting “substantial” strain on the NHS.
Some 40,000 people die of the condition each year.
But experts said reducing saturated fats and removing trans fats from the diet could save more than 20,000 lives.
They said reducing daily salt intake by 3g to a maximum of 6g per day for adults by 2015 would prevent 15,000 to 20,000 deaths from heart disease and stroke.
Professor Klim McPherson, who chairs the Nice guidance development group, stressed the importance of addressing the issue among children and young people.
He said: “We want the healthy choice to be the easy choice. Going even further, we want the healthy choice to be the less expensive, more attractive choice.”
Professor Simon Capewell, vice-chairman of the group, said there had been “encouraging progress” in reducing the levels of salt and saturated fat in food but insisted the rate of change should be “speeded up urgently”.