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Prof. Ole Faergeman
photo by Nerissa Escanlar
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“Climate change is emerging as one of the most serious threats to human health,” says Ole Faergeman, Emeritus Professor of Preventative Cardiology at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. “It’s incumbent on clinicians to contribute to the debate and try to persuade people to do what's necessary to discourage emissions of greenhouse gases,” he adds, noting that sea levels are currently expected to rise by about 1 metre by 2100 as a result of global warming. “I intend to argue that by driving less, walking more and eating less red meat we could both prevent heart disease and combat global warming.”
Physicians, Faergeman also reasons, are easily capable of understanding the physical and statistical methods used by climatologists, and therefore in a good position to lend politicians and industrial leaders their professional support to achieve policy changes.
On the common causes of global warming and coronary artery disease, Faergeman explains how burning fossil fuels enables us to become physically inactive and in turn to produce carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas causing global warming.
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© Psdphotography (Philip
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The connection between overeating and agriculture’s contribution to global warming is similarly straightforward. Consuming animal food, especially “red meat” from pigs and cows, contributes to CAD, and the production of livestock alone is estimated to account for about 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the main anthropogenic (caused by humans) greenhouse gases, which act to trap warmth in the earth's lower atmosphere.
These emissions come from field fertilisers, resulting in nitrogen oxide being released into the atmosphere, ruminant livestock, releasing methane, and deforestation (for grasslands to grow animal feed) reducing the sequestration of carbon, leading to raised levels in the atmosphere.
Red meat intake has been linked to cancer and cardiovascular disease. In a study published in March, Rashmi Sinha and colleagues, from the National Cancer Institute in
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the USA assessed the association between meat intake and risk of death among 500,000 individuals taking part in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study (Arch Intern Med 2009; 169: 562-571). Results showed, when the one-fifth of men and women who ate the most red meat were compared to the one-fifth who ate the least red meat, CVD mortality risk was elevated in the highest quintile for men (HR 1.27, 95% CI 1.20-1.35, and women HR 1.50, 95% CI 1.37-1.65).
“One aspect that's really important is the relative efficiency of food energy use,” says Faergeman. “If you take food energy, such as grain, and put it through a cow before it becomes the steak on your plate, there's a huge difference in the amount of energy consumed compared to making bread or pasta.”
Faergeman calls on the ESC to include recommendations on reducing average intake of red meat to 300 g per week in its European Guidelines on CVD Prevention. “We'd then be helping prevent heart disease and global warming,” he says.