Reducing the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

Despite a decline in mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in many countries between 1970 and 1985 (Rosenman 1992), the affliction remains responsible for 51 % of human deaths in the world (Kakkar 1989). Each year in the United Kingdom, 170,000 people die from myocardial infarction, and CVD-related disorders cost the National Health Service over £500 million a year (Coronary Prevention Group 1991). These unacceptable statistics remain despite numerous intervention programs and health promotion campaigns and may be due, in part, to our incomplete understanding of the biochemical processes responsible for the pathogenesis of the disease. For example, even if it is assumed that the “classical” CVD risk factors of smoking, blood cholesterol, and hypertension are causal rather than merely adventitious, they explain only 50% of the variance in the incidence of the disease (Gey 1986). Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that medical and nutritional advice to moderate the well recognized CVD risk factors has had little effect in reducing morbidity. However, results from recent biochemical, epidemiological, and cell culture studies suggest that some of the unexplained variation in CVD incidence may be due to inadequate intakes of micronutrients with antioxidant activity such as vitamins E, C, and beta (β)-carotene. The purpose of this chapter is to consider whether these and other potential nutritional antioxidants confer a functional role upon certain foods to reduce the risk of CVD.