Differences in Mortality Patterns of Coronary Heart Disease and Cerebrovascular Lesions

• Published in: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
• Main Author: SIGURJONSSON, JULIUS
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1974
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1974.tb02172.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1532-5415.1974.tb02172.x; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1974.tb02172.x/fullpdf

ABSTRACT: The common statement that cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are causing an ever‐increasing mortality in the more affluent societies is somewhat misleading since the rise is generally fully accounted for by one category only of CVD, i. e., coronary heart disease (CHD), and is often confined to males. Concurrently with an increasing trend in coronary mortality there has been a decline in deaths from cerebrovascular lesions (CVL). Unlike the rates for CHD—often with two to four times as high death rates for males as for females at ages 35–64 — the rates for CVL have usually shown little sex difference. In Iceland (1951–1960) the urban rates of death from CHD were more than twice as high as the rural ones, but the rates for CVL showed only a relatively slight urban excess. These dissimilarities in mortality patterns of CHD and CVL are indicative of differences in the importance of the various risk factors relating to the two disorders.