Takeheart Health Check      

Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of mortality in men over 45 years and in women over 65 years throughout Europe.(390)

There is still a massive toll of death and disability from coronary heart disease in the United Kingdom. It remains one of the highest in the world. (396)

Coronary heart disease is the single largest cause of death in the United Kingdom accounting for nearly 170,000 deaths in 1993. If you are a man one in three of you and if you are a woman one in four of you will die from the disease. 450 of you every day, 210 of whom are women. There appears to be a 10 year delay in deaths due to coronary heart disease in women compared with men. (396, 419)

There is evidence that the reduction in deaths from coronary heart disease has occurred earlier and to a greater extent in countries with more aggressive policies of cardiovascular risk factor intervention than we have in the United Kingdom. (391)

The Health of the Nation target for coronary heart disease is a 40% reduction in mortality in England and Scotland between 1990 and 2000 in under 65 year olds. (392, 393). Wales is targetting a 50% reduction.(394) while Northern Ireland 15% reduction by the end of1997. (395) How have we done?

Mortality from coronary heart disease in the United Kingdom is falling. However the reduction is still much less than that achieved in other developed countries. For example the death rate for men aged 35-74 fell by 23% between 1980 and 1990 in the UK, but it fell by 28% in Italy, 33% in Sweden and 35% in the United States. (396)

In the United Kingdom it is estimated that about 1.4 million of you have had a heart attack, 330,000 each year, and 2 million have angina. (396)

Approximately 10% of all hospital in-patient cases for men aged 45-64 were for coronary heart disease in 1991/2.(396)

Chest pain is the most common medical reason for a patient attending Accident & Emergency. (397)

Coronary heart disease cost the National Health Service at least £1,420 million in 1994 - including 21,000 coronary bypass operations,140 heart transplants and over 11,500 coronary angioplasties. (396) A successful no smoking campaign would be good value.

In 1992/3 66 million of your working days were lost due to coronary heart disease. This is 13% of all days lost due to sickness. Invalidity benefit cost the Government £858 million. The cost to industry was £3 billion in lost production. (396) Again smoking reduction would be a great saving.

Coronary heart disease patterns within the United Kingdom and other countries have consistently shown that heart disease is more common among the less privileged socio-economic groups. (398)

If you are middle aged you should continue to exercise as you grow older, as it reduces mortality. (444, 445)

"We don't know why laughing protects the heart" says Dr Michael Miller, the director of the Centre for Preventive Cardilogy in Maryland, "but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective lining in our blood vessels.
"This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack.
"We know exercise, not smoking, and eating low-fat foods reduce the risk of heart disease. Perhaps regular hearty laughter should be added to the list."
Quoted in the Sunday Times 19/11/2000

Maybe good to take folic acid supplement to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease - 0.8mg a day. It reduces the amount of circulating homocysteine. (513)

The economic costs of heart disease are truly staggering - $351.8 billion in th US in 2002 and in 1999 the cost to the NHS in the UK was £1.7 billion. (536) In England heart disease kills more than 110,000 people a year. (537) Coronary heart disease risk factors in children and adolescents persist into adulthood. (538, 539, 540, 541)