HEART disease is a bigger killer in Gosport than anywhere else in the region, a new report has revealed.

The results for Gosport are in stark contrast to Fareham where residents have the lowest rate of heart disease death.

The report was commissioned by Portsmouth and South East Hampshire Health Authority.

This good news for Fareham follows statistics released earlier this year which put the town's women top of the region for living longer.

Gosport residents are more likely to die from heart disease than people in Portsmouth and Havant which have areas of poor living standards and high unemployment.

Figures for the under-65s show that people in the health authority area have a better than national average rate for dying from heart disease as a whole.

However, when these figures are broken down 49 people per 100,000 in Gosport die from the disease compared with 26 per 100,000 in Fareham.

The national average is 40 per 100,000 and the regional average is 31.