Britons ignore heart disease

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A poll timed to coincide with World Heart Day on Sunday found that only 15% of adults cite the health of their heart as a current concern.

It also revealed that cancer is the population's top health worry for those under 70 despite heart disease and related illnesses being the main cause of death in the UK.

Diseases of the heart and circulatory system disorders kill 208,000 people a year, and of those, coronary heart disease kills 117,000, according to the British Heart Foundation.

Experts believe that people who fail to face up to the risks are storing up health problems for the future, and unnecessarily endangering their lives.

The survey found that people's concerns about their heart only overtook their worry about cancer once they reached their 70s.

Parents were also found to be consistently more concerned about their children developing cancer than about heart problems later in life.

This was despite the fact that the majority, 67%, believe cardiovascular disease kills more people in the UK than cancer.

Nearly half of all deaths from coronary heart disease in the UK are due to raised cholesterol, which is suffered by two out of three adults.

Yet eight out of 10 people do not know their own cholesterol level and 55% believe they do not have high cholesterol, the poll found. It found 31% of people overall put cancer at the top of their health concerns, with weight second on 17% and heart problems only the third highest concern with 15%.