Preventable Causes of Death

[Guest guest]

Hi folks:

I was taking a snoop at Jeff Novick's Facebook page and came across an

interesting post containing information I had not seen previously, quantifying

annual deaths in the US from preventable causes. The numbers were based on data

from 2005.

In that year here are the number of deaths believed to have resulted from each

of the following causes, out of 2.5 million total deaths:

467,000 --- Tobacco smoking.

395,000 --- Hypertension.

216,000 --- Excessive body weight.

191,000 --- Inadequate exercise.

102,000 --- Excessive salt intake.

84,000 --- Low intake of beneficial fat from fish.

82,000 --- Intake of trans fatty acids.

64,000 --- Excessive alcohol intake.

I found this interesting since only the body weight issue is directly related to

CR. So this list provides, at least for me, a helpful overview of the things I

really ought to be doing in addition to CR. On the question of alcohol, the

study found that, at least for the population as a whole the well known benefits

were outweighed by the disadvantages.

Of course almost all of us here have long realized these are health issues. And

no doubt have adapted our lives accordingly. But it is nice to see numbers

attached to them to give some idea of their relative importance. For example, I

had not realized the fish fats EPA and DHA to be as significant as this study

has found.

Source:

" The preventable causes of death in the United States: comparative risk

assessment of dietary, lifestyle, and metabolic risk factors. "

Danaei G, Ding EL, Mozaffarian D, B, Rehm J, Murray CJ, Ezzati M.

PLoS Med. 2009 Apr 28;6(4):e1000058. Epub 2009 Apr 28.

PMID: 19399161

[Thanks Jeff!]

Rodney.