Deaths From Heart Disease, Cancer, AIDS Declined in '99
COMMENTS FROM OUR UNIVERSE :
The information we give our citizens in our universe,
first come from different sources upon your earth.
We always give this information to provide the view your
professionals teach the world, but specifically in the western part of your
world.
Although some professionals have a better understanding
than other, they are missing a great part of the truth and the science to
govern their actions! We do not necessarily
agree with them totally because they only have part of that which they need,
but we feel this information is good so that we can make a comparison with your
processes and our science.
Then you can be more informed and make decisions more intelligently
and less often out of misinformation and or ignorance of different methods and
beliefs about a subject covered.
We will always declare that it is the diet and life style
that is the major contributor to the diseases a person acquires as a result of
their own choices of what they do and put into their systems. Food addictions; cravings and over eating
certain foods, while not eating others that provide needed nutrition).
Then the lack of nutrition in your ground, giving you
foodless food, because farmers do not farm properly is the next cause of why
you become the best fed starving people on the planet. Such are therefore the leading causes of all
of your diseases in the free world while in the third world countries it is
plain starvation!
You say they have food!
Yes, but not a sufficient variety or quantity, so disease is the result!
Parasites and microbes seek out a host that has compatible chemistry to their liking, where as they do not bother healthy tissue! The reason most everyone can become a host is that there really are no health people upon your planet, just some people that experience less sickness than others, because they are not so destructive and have fewer addictions!
We start with:
Deaths From Heart Disease, Cancer, AIDS Declined in '99
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By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 27, 2001; Page A03
But deaths attributable to high blood pressure, diabetes, respiratory disease and blood infections climbed, the data show.
And thanks in part to a new classification system, medical experts for the first time have an accurate gauge on the toll of Alzheimer's -- now the eighth leading cause of death in America.
"We're encouraged that fewer Americans are dying from some of the leading causes of death and concerned that other causes are taking a larger toll," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said in a statement.
"Many of these deaths are preventable, and too many Americans are dying from preventable causes."
The overall death rate in the District continued to lead the nation, according to the analysis, an annual report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The mortality rates in both Maryland and Virginia exceeded the national average slightly.
District health officials were at a loss to put the new rates into perspective, but they stressed that comparing a predominantly black, urban center with states made up of suburban and rural populations tends to skew the results.
Researchers found few surprises in the overall 1999 figures, the latest available. However, the data do offer a glimpse into the impact of medical advances, culture and lifestyle in this country.
Perhaps the greatest new insight came out of the revised figures for Alzheimer's, a brain disease that often begins with memory loss and can render patients unable to perform simple everyday tasks.
This year, for the first time, deaths related to a wide range of dementias were classified as Alzheimer's deaths. The regrouping pushed Alzheimer's up from being the 12th leading cause of death to being the eighth in 1999, surpassing other major causes such as car accidents and breast cancer.
"The new data on Alzheimer's mortality adds to our understanding of the magnitude of this serious problem," said Edward Sondik, director of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
CDC analysts speculated that the rise in deaths caused by respiratory illness and septicemia -- a blood infection -- is also connected to a growing elderly population. Older people "are much more susceptible to getting blood infections" during surgery or other invasive procedures, said Ken Kochanek, the lead author of the report.
"As our population continues to age, we would expect causes like septicemia to continue increasing."
He said two influenza outbreaks in 1999 probably pushed up the mortality rate for respiratory disease. In younger, healthy people influenza does not result in death, he said. But for the elderly, who often suffer from other chronic illnesses, a bout of the flu can easily lead to pneumonia and even death.
As world leaders meet at the United Nations to confront the global scourge of AIDS, the disease continues to claim fewer lives in the United States. Continuing a trend that began in 1996, mortality from HIV infection fell 4 percent in 1999.
However, the illness remains a major cause of death for blacks between the ages of 25 and 44.
"Although HIV as a cause of death has dropped in rank in recent years, we must guard against complacency and continue to emphasize prevention," said CDC Director Jeffrey P. Koplan.
Although the homicide rate fell, it continued to be a leading cause of death for young black men and women. It was the No. 1 killer of African American men between the ages of 15 and 24 and the second leading cause of death for black women in that age group.
Over the past few years, the number of diabetes-related deaths has inched upward. Some speculate that the trend is related to a similar rise in obesity in the country, although Kochanek said it is impossible to ascertain that purely from the mortality data.
According to the preliminary numbers, 2,391,630 people died in the United States in 1999, an increase of 54,374 over the previous year.
The age-adjusted rate, which takes into consideration age distribution from state to state, was 882 for every 100,000 Americans, a 1 percent increase over 1998.
On opposite ends of the spectrum, life expectancy (76.7 years) and the infant mortality rate (7.1 percent) did not change nationwide.
There were no dramatic differences between men and women in the findings.
The CDC report, each year, focuses on the top 15 causes of death. About 380,000 deaths in 1999 fit into the loose category of "other," Kochanek said. For many, that simply meant old age.
Meanwhile, a separate report on children's health, due to be issued today by the private, nonprofit Public Health Policy Advisory Board, found that while the death rate for youngsters has declined, unintentional injuries such as drownings and shootings accounted for nearly half of all deaths among people under the age of 20.
From 1984 to 1994, homicide deaths spiked, according to the report. By the mid-1990s, that "decade of violent death" had come to an end, but the nonprofit board chastised public health officials for failing to investigate further.
"Our report based on government data shows troubling evidence that a serious epidemic of teen deaths has come and declined without clear recognition of it," said Louis Sullivan, chairman of the board and a former HHS secretary.
"Only by recognizing and understanding the causes of preventable injuries can all American children avoid unnecessary mortality."
In addition, race continues to be a key indicator of death rates among children.
The survey by the health policy board found that "a black child is
nearly twice as likely to die from an injury than a white child."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company