Heart disease in Scottish women ‘unacceptable and preventable’

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) has branded the levels of heart disease in Scottish women as “unacceptable”. A BHF study discovered that women in Scotland are twice as likely die from heart disease before they reach 75 years-old than women in south west England, despite a 50 per cent decrease in premature coronary heart disease (CHD) deaths in Scottish women.

Dr Mike Knapton, BHF’s director of prevention and care, told BBC Scotland’s Reporting Scotland programme that the discrepancy between the two groups of British women was “unacceptable because it’s preventable”.

He said: “You can do something to reduce these inequalities across the country and the sort of things that I am thinking about are the things that we [already] know about: physical activity, diet and smoking.”

“The big question is: why don?t people change? What are the barriers?” he added.

In the report, Dr Knapton conceded that cutting premature coronary heart disease deaths in half for women in Scotland was a “major achievement” for the Scottish Executive, but he said it should “not distract us from the big strides that still need to be made in tackling the root causes of CHD.”

Andy Kerr, the Scottish health minister, told BBC news that there was still much work to be done for Scottish health. He commented: “Stopping smoking is the single biggest step anyone can take to improving their health, the potential benefits to the health of the people of Scotland now the ban is in place are enormous.”

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