Heart failure burden ‘will rise in tandem with life expectancy’

The prevalence of heart failure cases in the UK is likely to increase as a result of rising life expectancy rates, according to the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

New figures from the Office of National Statistics this week have revealed that average life spans for British males have increased to 78.2 years, while the figure stands at 82.3 years for women.

However, the ageing nature of the population has also meant that more than 750,000 people are now living with heart failure, with increasing heart attack survival rates also contributing to this.

As such, the BHF is calling for more funding to be diverted towards research into ways of repairing damage to the heart following coronary events, something that is not currently possible.

Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the BHF, said: "We need to spend 50 million pounds on research to repair damaged hearts. If we can get the money, we could be funding trials with heart failure patients in as little as five years."

This week, the organisation published a separate report corroborating Canadian research showing the impact healthy lifestyle changes can have on heart disease rates.