A round up of this week's health news in brief
Spain's rich face healthcare charges
SPAIN IS considering charging the rich for healthcare as it reforms its highly regarded but deeply indebted public health system, economy minister Luis de Guindos, pictured above, said yesterday.Cost-cutting measures can be found, the minister said, pinpointing the wealthy as a possible part of the solution.
“We need to open the debate in the central government and among the regions on whether the health service should be free for someone earning €100,000,” he said.
Heart failure drug made in Arklow wins approval
A DRUG manufactured in Co Wicklow which cuts the risk of death from heart failure by more than a quarter has just been given approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the condition.
Ivabradine, also known as Procoralan, was licensed for treating patients with angina, but has now been licensed for people suffering from chronic heart failure following a landmark trial two years ago.
Shift (systolic heart failure treatment with the If inhibitor ivabradine trial) took place involving 6,505 patients in 37 countries including Ireland. It found that patients taking the drug as opposed to those on the conventional treatments, which include beta-blockers and Ace inhibitors, reduced the risk of hospitalisation due to worsening heart failure by 26 per cent; the chances of death from heart failure by the same amount; and death by cardiovascular failure in general by 17 per cent over a period of just two years.
Patients with heart failure who have elevated heart rates have poorer long-term survival rates than those with cancer, but Procoralan has dramatically improved not just life expectancy, but also quality of life.
The drug slows the heart rate. This may have a protective effect on the heart, and allow the heart to pump more efficiently at a slower rate.
Procoralan is made at French drug company Servier’s Arklow site which was subject to a €47 million investment two years.
The drug costs about €2 per treatment per day.
Nearly 90% of Irish people lack Omega 3, survey says
JUST OVER 10 per cent of the population eat sufficient oily fish to receive their necessary intake of Omega 3, a new survey suggests.
The IPSOS/MRBI survey found 89 per cent of Irish people do not eat enough salmon, fresh tuna, anchovies or trout to ensure that they receive the required dose of Omega 3.
The fatty acid, which has a proven record in preventing heart disease and is also linked with better mental health and healthier pregnancies, cannot be synthesised by the human body.
It has to be extracted from oily fish (not white fish) and, to a lesser extent, red meats and seeds.
Those who do not ingest it in their diets need to take a fish oil supplement on a daily basis.
UCD professor of public health Pat Wall said the survey rang true as to the absence of Omega 3 in the Irish diet.
“There is no downside to Omega 3,” he said. “For an island people we eat very little fish.
“Studies have shown that societies that eat a lot of fish do not get cardiovascular diseases like we do. We don’t have nearly enough Omega 3 in our diet.”
Prof Wall will speak at seminars on Looking After Your Most Valuable Asset – Your Health? The negative Impact of Low Oily Fish Consumption on Irish Health next week which will also be addressed by Gaye Godkin, a consultant public health nutritionist at MorEPA, a health supplement company, which commissioned the survey.
