[Are the international changes in coronary mortality since 1968 incidental?].

Abstract

Important negative and positive changes in coronary mortality have been observed since 1968 in several industrialized countries. It is extremely important to know if those changes are spurious or real. It is the aim of this paper to try to resolve the problem by comparing coronary mortality with all causes mortality and other causes of death in 29 countries in the period 1968 to 1987, in men and women. The comparison was done not only as means obtained over the years, but also as slopes estimated in each country by linear regression of mortality versus the years of observation, and finally as yearly % changes in mortality. The comparisons were done between coronary mortality of men with other causes of death from men or women: all causes, cancers from colon, rectum, prostate and breast, and finally total cardiovascular, stroke and diabetes under three different conditions: means, slopes and % changes. The overall result was that when coronary mortality changed similar changes were observed for all causes mortality and the other causes of death. The majority of the data point to saturated fat intake as the common factor in the observed changes in different types of mortality. Those findings make a spurious origin of the change in mortality very unlikely and underscore the importance of vital statistics for monitoring public health.