Making a difference in Cookstown, Northern Ireland

We've recently launched a huge £9 million programme called Hearty Lives, and we're using the money to help people in isolated or deprived areas to look after their hearts.

One of the first places on our long list was Cookstown in County Tyrone, NI. This lovely picturesque town nonetheless suffers from the third highest premature death rate from heart disease in Northern Ireland, so we're setting up an innovative £200,000 heart health programme for them.

We'll be concentrating first on the parts of Cookstown where people are most likely to die early from heart disease. We've got a nurse educator on board, who's going to visit community groups and workplaces, like local meat factory Vion, to give free advice and support.

We're also going to train up local people with emergency life saving skills, and helping heart patients get access to cardiac rehabilitation, which can dramatically improve quality of life!

Hearty Lives is already doing life-saving work in Hastings, Dundee and Newham, and we're all set to help bring help to even more places in real need of better heart health. Keep an eye out next week, when we'll be announcing our next project!

Screening now...

Our new series of six videos called Live With a Healthy Heart, about heart disease and risk factors for people with learning disabilities, is now available on our British Heart Foundation YouTube Channel. Here's the Introduction...

Sarnie not up to scratch?

A widely reported story in the media today details how unhealthy some shop bought sandwiches can be. Many contain high levels of salt and saturated fat.

Fortunately you no longer need to fret about your daily sarnie. We've put together some top tips which we hope will help you enjoy a heart healthy lunch.

See our Working Lunch top tips on our main website. Enjoy.

Read more healthy lifestyle Top Tips

From sofa slouch to exercise addict

Everyone has different motivations for exercising – from losing weight or letting off steam, to getting fit or keeping active in retirement.

But if you haven’t set foot in a gym since school, making that first move can be the hardest part.

Take for example BHF Heart Runner Andy Baston. Aged 43, he has a family history of heart attacks and a high-stress job as an air traffic controller. Andy worried for his health, but used to be too exhausted to do anything about it.

Then, two years ago, a friend said he was going to enter the London Marathon. Andy decided to take stock of his sedentary lifestyle and joined a running group at his gym.

Andy says: "The following year I ran a 10k race and a half marathon for the British Heart Foundation, and this year I ran the London Marathon for BHF in three hours 50 minutes.

"I couldn't believe it. Now (my wife) Tina has run a 10k race. If we can do it, anyone can. There's even a man of 75 who runs with my group.

"Competing for charity is close to my heart and will hopefully give me more years than my father and grandfather could enjoy."

If you’ve got an individual place in the Flora London Marathon, find out how you can run for the BHF

Find out how you can get active for your heart

Read more about Andy plus other inspiring stories on the Daily Mail's website

How to take control of your diabetes ‘destiny’

According to a new BHF study, women at high risk of diabetes can reduce their body’s insensitivity to insulin – which affects blood sugar control – by exercising.

Diabetes is a major risk factor for heart disease.

People with a family history of diabetes are predisposed to the condition and tend to have greater ‘resistance’ to insulin.

However, after just seven weeks of an exercise programme, insulin resistance had reduced by nearly a quarter in women whose family history put them at a high risk of type 2 diabetes.

Rose Traynor from Glasgow, a social worker with South Lanarkshire Council, took part in the study. Her mother has diabetes. Her father, now deceased, was also diabetic.

Rose says: "Before taking part in the study I wasn’t aware of the effect exercise had on my likelihood of getting diabetes and it wasn’t something that I had really given much thought to.

"I now realise that I can be proactive in minimising the risk of this simply by increasing the amount of exercise I do. The exercise regime really gave me the kick start I needed to get exercising properly. It has now become just a part of everyday life for me."

Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director at the BHF, commented: "I hope the findings will encourage people to get active for their health."

Taking heart information out to the nation

Our latest video podcast has just been released, and it's a report from our recent BHF Live! events which took place in north east England.

Our nurses' team and a special BHF Live! truck toured supermarkets offering members of the public free heart health information, plus cholesterol, blood pressure and overall fitness tests.

You can see how they all got on by watching the video below. We hope you enjoy it...

BHF goes Live!

BHF team member, Andrew Johnson, has hit the road as part of the first ever BHF Live! roadshow.

First stop was the Co-Operative supermarket in Shildon, from where Andrew reports:

"Our new heart health roadshow has stopped in Shildon, County Durham, armed with a wealth of heart health information, support and advice for the community.

"Mayor of Shildon, councillor Ann Hammond, was the first in line for her free heart health check with a BHF nurse. She wasn't alone, with the free heart health checks and health resource materials going down a storm!"

If you are in the Shildon area then you can catch the BHF Live! roadshow bus at the Co-Operative supermarket until saturday 7 June.

After which, we'll be hitting the road to visit other stores in the area. See the BHF Live! schedule for full details.

Have you visited the BHF Live! roadshow? Post a comment below and let us know your thoughts about it!

Bostin boost for heart health

Support Donato Esposito and help him reach his aim of raising £5,000 for the BHF, as he hikes the Inca Trail this month.

Donato is the Founder of the Bostin Group and is selling these limited edition 'Feel the Bostin Love' T-shirts in aid of the BHF on the Bostin website

If you were wondering, Bostin is acutally a Brummie term for 'brilliant'. And it certainly is a bostin idea for an even more bostin cause!

Get one of these limited edition tees now, in time for summer!

You can also show your support for Donato on his BHF Sponsor Page

See how you too can help us raise funds so that we can continue our vital work and research.

Our Doubt Kills campaign gets a third wave

Our award-winning Doubt Kills campaign - which first ran in 2006 and again last summer - is currently enjoying a month-long reprise on the billboards, tube posters and bus sides of London.

As the majority of our users are based outside London, we nevertheless thought it a good opportunity to remind you of the core message of Doubt Kills, which is this: If you experience chest pain, call 999 immediately.

You can read more about this message, and hear from people whose lives have been saved by the campaign, on our special Doubt Kills website

There's also a free Doubt Kills podcast, an animation of what happens to your heart during a heart attack, plus an informative interactive quiz - and much more besides.

Walking your way to heart health

Feeling brave - as we do from time to time on the BHF Blog - we feel sure that the weather will be kind to the UK on Thursday.

Which would be good, because 24 April is officially national Walk to Work Day - or at least break your regular commute and walk part way to work if you live too far away.

Walking is of course great for your heart health, so naturally we're all in favour of this initiative promoted by Living Streets, a charity campaigning to create better streets and public spaces for people on foot.
There's also more on our website about the heart health benefits of getting active.

Now, let's have a look at that weather forecast for Thursday...