Diet and heart disease in the 1980s.

In a climate of increasing concern about the high incidence of coronary heart disease in South Africa, calls are increasingly being made for South Africans to alter their diet. Can this exhortation be justified, and are the right foods being singled out as culprits? If changes in the eating habits of a nation are advocated, the advice must not only be soundly based in terms of likely benefit but must also take account of potential hazards. Critical perusal of the current literature leads to the conclusion that advice promoting a fat-modified, lower-salt diet is sound, safe and likely to be effective, especially as regards the younger segment of the westernized population.