Have a heart for animals

id you know today is World Heart Day? It's a day to raise awareness about prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

But while our thoughts turn to those affected by heart disease, will you remember the countless animals who continue to suffer and die in pointless experiments every year?

Animals have been used by researchers in heart disease research for over a century. But while some still insist that animal experiments are vital to increase our understanding of the disease, the failure of these cruel tests is evident by the high rates of death and illness it sadly still causes.

Just a few simple steps such as eating more healthily, cutting down on alcohol and stopping smoking can improve your heart health and help to prevent the onset of heart disease. However, preventative lifestyle changes and medicines continue to receive considerably less attention than more ‘glamorous’ cures such as drugs, surgical intervention and transplantation.

Sadly, current research on animals involves artificially clogging the arteries of animals. Rabbits, rats, dogs, pigs and even monkeys are forced to consume a ‘western diet’ high in fat and cholesterol. The animals are then put on a healthier diet or given drugs to see if the clogging of the arteries can be reduced.

However, such experiments are extremely artificial when compared to the human situation. Heart disease is a complex disorder affected by many factors including diet, age, lifestyle and existing conditions such as diabetes.  There is no one animal experiment that is able to encompass all of the variables known to cause the disease in humans. Many animals also metabolise fat in different ways to humans, and greatly differ in their susceptibility to the development of clogged arterties (known as atherosclerosis).

In humans the onset of a heart attack is often the consequence of many years of underlying disease. The symptoms of a heart attack in the animals used in these experiments usually occur immediately as a result of cruel surgical intervention. 

Recent ethical studies on humans have shown that half of all heart disease deaths could be prevented by reducing or eliminating known risk factors such as trans fats from diets, which contribute to the development of serious coronary problems.

So this World Heart Day, rather than fixating on ‘quick-fix’ solutions, resulting in the needless suffering and death of thousands of animals, we should shift our focus towards reducing risk factors and optimising prevention. Eat a healthy diet, do more exercise, cut down on smoking and drinking. Your heart will be grateful for it. And so will the animals.

References:

• Cardiovascular mortality associated with 5 leading risk factors: national and state preventable fractions estimated from survey data. (2015). Annals of Internal Medicine, 163(4): 245-253. Original article can be found here: http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2362308
• Potential of trans fats policies to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in mortality from coronary heart disease in England: cost effectiveness modelling study. (2015). British Medical Journal, 351, h4583. Original article can be found here: http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4583