DEATHS IN AMERICA

Press, Volume C, Issue 29626, 23 September 1961, Page 16

DEATHS IN AMERICA

Role Of Heart Diseases

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter) NEW YORK,

Arteriosclerotic heart diseases, including coronary disease, are responsible for more deaths in the United States than all other heart diseases combined, according to statisticians of a life insurance company. Arteriosclerotic heart diseases account for almost four-fifths of all heart disease deaths among white males and for two-thirds of those among white females. They also account for slightly over half of those among non-white males, and slightly less than half among non-white females.

The proportion of deaths increases with advancing age. the rise being particularly rapid during early adult life. Among white males, over half of all heart disease deaths in the 25-34 age group are of the arteriosclerotic type, the proportion increasing to nearly 80 per cent, at 35-44 years and to about 85 per cent, in the 45-64 age range, after which is decreases moderately. Second in numerical importance is hypertensive heart disease, which causes 7 per cent, of all heart deaths among white males, and about twice that proportion among white females. It. accounts for a little more than one-fifth of all heart disease deaths among nonwhite males and for almost one-third among non-white females. Although the mortality from rheumatic heart disease was much higher a generation ago, it still ranks as a major cause of heart disease

deaths in childhood and early adult life. Most cardiac deaths among infants and young children are of congenital origin. Congenital heart disease takes so large a death toll in infancy that the mortality rate from heart disease as a whole under the age of one year is higher than that for any other group under the age of 43 years, according to the insurance company.