Last Friday, I reported on lethal trends, mostly in disease, affecting people around the globe. Tonight, I ran across a paper with an interesting chart that compares all causes of mortality in Americans. Heart diseases ranked first, accounting for 27 percent of U.S. deaths. Number 2: cancer, at 23 percent.
Those chart toppers probably come as little surprise. What may raise an eyebrow or two: chronic lower respiratory diseases (#4 on the list) kill 6% of people each year, and accidents (#5) kill nearly 5% more. The next two most frequent causes of death: diabetes at 3% and Alzheimer's at 2.8%. Murder, #15 on the list, accounts for 17,360 deaths, or 0.7 percent, a value just slightly behind the 18,000 lives lost to Parkinson disease. The latter is especially troubling because there is little information on what causes most cases of Parkinson disease--and still no cure.
Source: Jemal, A., et al. 2007. Cancer Statistics, 2007. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 57(January/February):43.
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