Residents urged to look after their hearts

Residents across Leeds are being targeted with a major new campaign to reduce coronary heart disease and stroke.

The initiative comes just months after stark warnings that our region has the highest death rate in England attributed to coronary heart disease.

Every month, around 1,100 people in Yorkshire are killed by heart and circulatory diseases – around 10 per cent higher than the national average.

Now One You Leeds – Leeds City Council’s free local healthy living service – has launched its ‘5 Ways To A Healthy Heart’ campaign which offers clear advice for a healthier lifestyle.

The campaign challenges people to improve the health of their hearts by following five simple steps:

• Be smoke free – not smoking is the best thing you can do for your heart and your health.
• Drink less – keeping under 14 units per week will benefit your health and energy levels.
• Be more active – by keeping active for 30 minutes on most days, you can reduce your risk of stroke or heart disease by 35%.
• Eat more healthily – healthy eating can prevent problems with high blood pressure and cholesterol.
• Manage your weight – by losing just 5-10% of your weight will reduce the strain on your heart.

Someone dies from heart and circulatory diseases every three minutes in the UK - equating to 460 deaths a day, and 17,000 every year.

Yorkshire has topped the death rate tables since 2011, with the highest rates in the region being in Hull (334 per 100,000), Scarborough (327 per 100,000), Bradford (300 per 100,000), Leeds (288 per 100,000) and North East Lincolnshire (285 per 100,000).

Councillor Rebecca Charlwood, Leeds City Council’s Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adults, comments: “Tackling the high rates of coronary heart disease is one of our major priorities, and campaigns such as this are a great way to educate local residents and encourage them to take responsibility for their health.

“I hope as many people as possible take notice of the simple messages promoted in One You Leeds’s latest initiative.”

One You Leeds is designed to support the city’s residents to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

To support the ‘5 Ways To A Healthy Heart’ campaign, One You Leeds are promoting the interactive heart age tool developed by Public Health England. Residents can use the tool to find out their heart’s ‘age’ and the measures they can take to make it younger and healthier.

This can be accessed at oneyouleeds.co.uk/heart-age-tool.

For media enquiries please contact:

Andrew Vaux, Leeds City Council press office (0113) 378 6007

email: andrew.vaux@leeds.gov.uk