Nutritional science for mind health products
DSM Nutritional Products
Heart disease costs the UK €87.85 per capita, or €5.2 billion a year - almost a quarter of the EU's entire spending on coronary heart disease.
Germany spends €6.9 billion or €84.02 per capita, while Sweden spends just over €70 per head of population. Finland, the country with the highest heart disease rate, spends €54.83 per capita, show the statistics compiled by the European Heart Network.
While the figures reflect the high incidence of heart disease in northern countries, the British Heart Foundations says the figures also demonstrate the good care being offered to the UK's 2.7 million people living with the disease.
And a poll carried out by the charity shows that although heart disease is the UK's biggest killer, people seem more concerned about developing cancer or Alzheimer's disease.
Only one in 10 people surveyed feared heart disease most, while almost half of the 1,000 adults questioned were most concerned about cancer, and one in five worry most about Alzheimer's or dementia.
This lack of concern makes it more difficult for food companies to target consumers with heart healthy foods but it also reveals the potential for products that become a long-term purchasing habit.
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "As survival with heart disease has improved, it has become a long-term, chronic condition for more and more people, rather than a means to a quick death."