The Heart and Heart Disease
Facts about: The Heart, Heart disease, Obesity
About the heart
The adult heart beats on average over one hundred thousand times a day, pumping blood carrying oxygen and nutrients around the body.
The heart of a newborn baby beats at 130 beats per minute, compared with 72 beats per minute in the average adult.
The heart pumps 5 litres of blood per minute at rest, and 30 litres per minute during exercise.
Even at rest the heart works twice as hard as a sprinter's leg muscles.
The aorta is the largest blood vessel and has the diameter of a garden hose (in the adult).
About Heart Disease
Cardiovascular disease (all forms of heart disease and stroke) accounts for 4 out of 10 deaths in the UK.Deaths from cardiovascular disease affect men and women equally.
270 000 people have a heart attack each year - that's 1 person every 2 minutes.
In 30% of heart attacks, the person dies before reaching hospital.
Coronary heart disease (affecting the blood vessels in the heart) causes 610 000 deaths each year.
Coronary heart disease is the biggest single killer of both men and women in the UK.
And increased blood pressure of 20 mmHg (systolic) or 10 mmHg (diastolic) doubles the risk of death from coronary heart disease.
Having type 2 diabetes increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease: by 2-4 fold in men, and 3-5 fold in women.
Deaths from coronary heart disease are highest in Scotland, then N. Ireland, Wales and lowest in England.
But the risk of dying from coronary heard disease is much greater in the North of England than elsewhere in England.
data for 2006 from the British Heart Foundation www.heartstats.org
About Obesity
67% of men and 59% of women are overweight in England.
23% of men and 24% of women are obese in England.
"Obese" is defined clinically as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30.
BMI is calculated as weight in kg divided by height in metres squared (kg/m2).
Obesity is associated with increases in blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels and type 2 diabetes - all of these increase the risk of developing coronary heart disease.