Smoking And Heart Disease

Smoking - A Major Cause of Heart Disease

Heart disease has long been the number one on the leading causes of death in America list as published by the CDC.  However, of those annual victims of heart disease the CDC has compiled a report titled Smoking Attributable Mortality (SAM). This report has been updated and recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Feb. 11, ’09) and states that 126,005 mortal heart disease cases are caused primarily by smoking tobacco products as of 2004, the latest year that data is available. That equates to 20 percent of all mortal heart disease cases! This breakdown alone would make this the fourth leading cause of death in all of America!

Life Expectancy of Smokers

It’s further estimated that smoking plays a role in up to 40 percent of all mortal heart disease occurances, a full 252,000 people or 10.5% of all annual mortal events of any kind. Additional statistics show that the life expectancy of smokers is unchanged from non-smokers if they quit before they turn 30 years old, yet the life expectancy of smokers over-all is estimated to be roughly 14 years shorter than the general population. This seems to suggest that the increased risk of coronary heart disease pertaining to smoking is extremely noticeable and only so to those who haven't quit smoking entirely for at least a number of decades.

Back Smoking Out of the Stats

What I find interesting is that if you back out the smokers from the entire pool then mortal heart disease cases only account for ~25.2 percent of all mortal events because smoking is the primary cause of roughly 440,000 events combined. Smoking only inflates the percentage in 'mortal heart disease case' to 'overall mortal case' totals by about one percent. So, despite the fact that so many of these mortal cases can be easily prevented, not taking up smoking still wouldn’t change the 'cause-of...-statistics' very much other than lowering the absolute numbers a little bit.

Age Adjusted Mortality Rates For Non-Smokers

The significant change would only appear in the age-adjusted deaths-per-100,000 number which currently is at an all time low of 776.5 as reported by the CDC. Extending the lives of 440,000 people would mean increasing the life expectancies for everyone for all age groups and would probably drop this number down into the upper 600s. –Just my opinion though.-

Do you have any thoughts? It's aparent to me that not smoking can definately help you live longer and aparently the statistics indicate that quitting smoking early in life can help you live just as long as well.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association, Feb. 11, ’09 - http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/301/6/593
CDC - Deaths in 2006 (Final Data) - http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

Photo Credit
nyki m via flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyki_m/

Dr. William Castelli On Heart Disease

Dr. William Castelli, one of the lead researchers of the Framingham Heart Study was quoted as saying:

"Close to 90 percent of all coronary death could be prevented if the cholesterol was kept below 182 mg/dL, blood pressure under 120 mmHg, and no smoking or diabetes."

Considering high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking all are risks for diabetes and that heart disease is the number one killer in America, this is saying a lot. Imagine if death by heart disease were cut by 90 percent... American and the world would live far longer on average and live much healthier lives.

It is also fairly easy to argue that if we cut all of these problems and actually started to prevent heart disease we might also see a remarkable reduction in people with type-2 diabetes.

Easy Ways to Live A Longer Life

I just came across some interesting information reported by a group of Danish researches a couple years ago. They studied the destructive behavior people take part in and translate the information into the average number of years lost in relation to a human’s lifespan.

Four Ways to Die Young

The researchers estimate that:

• Heavy smoking on average decreases length of life by 8.7 years on average.
• Physical Inactivity (or lack of exercise) sheds on average 5.3 years off of life expectancy.
• Heavy drinking decreases longevity by 4.7 years.
• And obesity (as defined as separate from inactivity) decreases your estimated life span by 2 years.

Combined; if people fall into all categories, then they are reducing their life spans by roughly 20.7 years!

Considering the average developed world human lives approximately 78-82 years then that means that these destructive practices are weighing down the average potential life span of humans significantly.

Live A Longer Life

Let’s just say half of the population falls into some combination of these categories and as a result sheds 10 years off their lives then that means the other half of the population doesn’t lose ten years. This transitive thought process would mean that without these human conditions average life expectancy should be at least 5 years higher. The life expectancy should be 83-87 years rather than 78-82.

The amazing part of these estimates is that they do not consider the practices that we could do to extend life expectancy such as eating the right foods and sleeping regularly. The Mediterranean Diet alone has been shown to decrease mortality rates across the board by 9 percent. If this diet were paired with avoiding these vices then the average life expectancy would easily be approaching 90 years or higher.

Expect to Live Into Your Nineties

People typically expect to live into their 70’s but increasingly the 80’s are the decade most people expect to die in. This is unfortunate because the habits and daily practices to reach the 90’s are so easy to do. Just imagine if Calorie Restriction (CRON) was practiced as well. This could extend life even more dramatically. Of course it is a more difficult practice to keep up for a lifetime, but even still, for those willing to do what it takes for the body to perform optimally this is a valid option.

The 90’s should be approachable to anyone, regardless of genetics, in my opinion. I wonder what your thoughts on this are. Let me know in the comments.