Amanda Holden and Ashley Roberts take on fancy dress fitness challenge for World Heart Day

This World Heart Day, we teamed up with Heart FM’s Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston for a Breakfast Show special focusing on the importance of keeping your heart healthy. 

Dressed in giant heart costumes, presenter Amanda and former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts put their fitness to the test, to highlight the importance of being active to improve heart health. The pair battled it out on static bikes, seeing who could cycle the furthest in six minutes - the time it took for two tracks to play on Heart FM.  

They were joined by our Senior Cardiac Nurse, Barbara Kobson who measured their heart rates before and after the exercise, monitoring their recovery. While Ashley was victorious in the race, Amanda’s heart rate recovered quicker. 

“One for the old ladies,” said Amanda, “I’m really proud of that. It looks like all those lockdown runs have paid off!” 

Barbara told Heart listeners; “Exercise is very important to maintaining a healthy heart. 

“Many different risk factors can increase your chance of having heart disease, so think about your lifestyle as a whole. Lack of exercise, not eating a healthy balanced diet, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and smoking can all cause damage to our hearts.”

World Heart Day

World Heart Day was set up by the World Heart Federation to raise awareness about heart and circulatory diseases. There are around 7.4 million people living with heart and circulatory diseases in the UK – that’s around twice as many as are living with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease combined.

Heart and circulatory diseases also cause more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK. This works out as nearly 170,000 deaths each year - or one death every three minutes.

Heart transplant in lockdown

Amanda and Jamie were also joined by twelve-year-old James Barrow who had a heart transplant in May, during the height of lockdown. James was diagnosed with heart failure in 2019, but when his condition worsened, a transplant became his only option. 

James’s Dad, Graham, explained, “James was feeling very unwell in July last year. He was feeling lethargic and he didn’t want to do anything, which is very unlike James. We got him checked out and it looked like it was just a bug and we were told it would clear up.”

A week later, however, James had started being sick and was struggling to walk for more than thirty seconds at a time.

“We thought, there’s clearly something more wrong,” said Graham. 

That’s when the family took him to hospital, where he was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. The condition causes the heart muscle to become stretched and thin, making it unable to pump blood around the body effectively. 

Graham said that the recent transplant means James, “can live more of a normal life.”

Dr Hazel Wallace - The Food Medic 

The final guest to join Amanda and Jamie was our ambassador - doctor, author and health influencer, Hazel Wallace, also known as The Food Medic. 

Hazel’s passion for health began after she lost her Dad to a stroke at the age of 14. She became inspired to study medicine and help others to live a more heart healthy lifestyle. 

Hazel told listeners, “Ideally we should be getting around 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week or thirty minutes a day. It doesn’t have to be in one block, you can break it up throughout the day – and like I say to everyone, all types of exercise counts.”

Women and heart disease

Another question put to Dr Hazel was around the relationship between gender and heart disease.

She explained, “It is definitely a belief that it’s a man’s disease but actually it effects both men and women. The fact that we have this belief means that women are less likely to present to the hospital when they’re having heart problems.

“Actually, women are more likely to have heart disease than breast cancer in the UK. So, it’s something that we need to start talking more about, we need to get more women going to the doctor if they’re having symptoms and managing their risk factors.”

Our research needs your support

Amanda and Jamie closed the show by urging listeners to support our life saving research by donating via the Heart FM website. 

Amanda said, “This year, World Heart Day comes at a massively important time. It’s a time when people with heart and circulatory diseases need the charity’s help more than ever. You can find out more information about heart health and donate to the British Heart Foundation on the Heart website.” 

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on our income with our research budget likely to be cut by £50 million this year. We urgently need the public’s support to help power our life-saving research.

Donate to help beat heartbreak forever