A LEADING heart charity has revealed it has invested almost £9 million into helping improve the health of people in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland Chest Heart & Stroke (NICHS) said over the past three decades the money has been used to support ground-breaking local research at universities and hospitals across the north.
It also has provided funding for treatments, medications, therapies, rehabilitation programmes and cures and is currently supporting 23 live projects in a bid to ensure "fewer people develop chest, heart and stroke related illnesses".
The charity says, at present, a total of £1,902,292 is invested in research, all funded through donations.
Its latest research project at Queen’s University, Belfast is investigating a potential new test for atrial fibrillation (AF), that causes an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate.
More than 39,000 people in Northern Ireland are living with the condition and a further 10,000 may be undiagnosed.
Fidelma Carter from the charity said: "A key priority for NICHS is ensuring fewer people develop chest, heart and stroke related illnesses and that more people than ever survive them with an enhanced quality of life and greater independence.
"Research is vital to this.
"Over the past 29 years we have supported local research by investing millions of pounds and funding a total of 117 projects."
Ms Carter said the AF research team are "looking for new blood-based biomarkers to help detect" the condition.
"Risk for AF is currently determined based on various clinical and lifestyle risk factors, such as age, sex and underlying vascular conditions," she said.
"However, not all people with AF will have these risk factors. There are proteins in the blood that can be used to detect heart damage, but these are not specific to AF.
"AF can be quite a ‘silent’ condition so the team are aiming to develop a test that can be used routinely to measure subtle changes in the blood before patients become very symptomatic of AF.
"Overall, the findings from this research could really help improve patient prognosis and quality of life, so we are excited to see how this project develops."
Professor Martin McKee, who chairs the scientific research committee at NICHS, said there have been "tremendous improvements in the health of the people of Northern Ireland...and much of that is due to advances in research".
"But there is so much more that we can do," he said.
"We’ve all been focused intensely on the Covid pandemic for the past few years, and this is entirely appropriate.
"But we must not forget that there are other threats to health and the research that NICHS supports is making a major contribution to tackling some of the greatest killers."
