fernjack455 0 #1 March 5, 2013 Coronary Heart Disease is the biggest killer, causing almost 74,000 deaths each year in the UK. That's about 200 people dying every day. More than a quarter of the deaths occur in people who are younger than 75 and experts say the majority are preventable. Smoking, being overweight and having high blood pressure are all risk factors. About one in three adults in England and Scotland have high blood pressure and nearly half of them are not receiving treatment for the condition, says the British Heart Foundation. Mr Hunt says all people between 40 and 74 should be offered a health check once every five years to look for things like high blood pressure. Between April 2011 and March 2012 only 2% of those eligible in England actually had a health check. Out of nearly 16 million people eligible, about 425,000 were offered a check and 211,000 took up the offer. Respiratory diseases The two main ones are asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). England has one of the highest rates of asthma prevalence in the world. Figures from GP registers in 2008 suggested that about 6% of the English population has asthma. And more than three million people in England are living with COPD. This lung disease kills about 23,000 people a year in the UK. The most important cause of COPD is smoking, but about 15% of cases are work-related, triggered by exposure to fumes, chemicals and dusts at work. Premature deaths from COPD in the UK was almost twice as high as the European average in 2008 and premature mortality for asthma was more than 1.5 times higher. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FlyingRhenquest 1 #2 March 5, 2013 If the universe had any sort of sense of humor, next year it'd be alligators. "Oh yeah, we sorted out that heart disease thing. Now it's alligators."I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
