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Strong Local Voice, Strong Local ChampionAnnette Brooke, Lib Dem MP for Mid Dorset & North Poole |
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Annette Brooke Promotes 'Help A Heart Week'
June 8, 2005 6:00 PM
British Heart Foundation's 'Help A Heart Week'
Annette Brooke, MP for Mid Dorset & North Poole, has tabled a parliamentary motion (see note 1) pledging her support to the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) 'Help A Heart Week' and urging others to do likewise.
From 4-12 June 2005, the BHF is calling on support for their Help A Heart Week campaign, which this year focuses on the burden heart disease has on women. Each week across the UK, heart and circulatory disease kills more than 2,400 women, and nearly 1.2 million women are living with the debilitating and often distressing burden of heart disease. Yet many women of all ages remain largely unaware of the risks heart disease poses to their health, believing it is primarily a problem for men.
Annette backs the BHF's call for better research, prevention, treatment and care services for women, adding: "Simple changes to lifestyle, such as taking regular exercise, eating a healthy diet and stopping smoking can significantly reduce the chances of developing heart disease."
The BHF is calling on politicians to implement a series of policies which will have a positive effect on women's heart health. Stopping smoking is the single most important thing anyone, man or woman, can do to reduce their risk from circulatory heart disease (CHD); mortality from CHD is 50% higher in smokers than in non-smokers. Evidence suggests that passive smoking kills around 10,000 men and women a week; the BHF believes introducing smoke-free legislation would massively reduce this death-toll as well as denormalise smoking in the eyes of those young people socialising in pubs and restaurants.
High incidence of overweight and obesity are major risk factors for CHD. Although rates are higher for men, the UK has a high proportion of overweight and obese women (34% and 23% of the female population). There has also been a steady increase in the prevalence of obesity in children, with rates in England doubling in boys and increasing by 30% in girls between 1995 and 2002.
As of 9 June 2005, 31 MP's have already signed up to the motion, from across the political spectrum.
Further information on how to support the campaign, including fundraising ideas and packs, can be found at www.bhf.org.uk.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
1. Early Day Motion 247, "British Heart Foundation's Help A Heart Week, 4th to 12th June": That this House recognises that more than 2,400 UK women die from heart and circulatory disease every week; is concerned that too many women believe that heart disease is primarily a problem for men despite the fact that nearly 1.2 million women in the UK are living with heart disease; recognises that simple changes to lifestyle, such as taking regular exercise, eating a healthy diet and stopping smoking can significantly reduce the chances of developing heart disease; and urges the public to support the events taking place across the UK during the British Heart Foundation's Help a Heart Week to raise awareness of heart disease and its prevention and to help the British Heart Foundation raise the funds it needs to continue to invest in life-saving heart research.
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