Heart attack and cancer are the leading causes of death

Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are the leading causes of death in Germany

25/09/2011

According to calculations by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in Germany. The second most common people died of cancer. Statisticians recorded a slight decline in heart disease.

Most common cause of death Heart attack and coronary heart disease
In Germany, most people still die from cardiovascular disease. In the last year 2010, a total of 858,768 people died, including 409,022 men and 449,746 women. According to the Federal Statistical Office, the number of deaths increased slightly compared to the same period of the previous year by 0.5 percent (2010 comparison to 2009). As in the same period of the previous year, cardiovascular disease was responsible for 41.1 percent of the causes of death. Thus, a total of 352,689 people died as a result of circulatory and / or heart disease. On average, most patients had died of these diseases, which had already passed the age of 65 (92 percent). In the first place stood the prosperity disease heart attack. Nearly 60,000 people died of myocardial infarction last year. As in previous years, men were 55.8 percent more affected than women (44.2 percent). Compared to the previous year in 2009, around 4,000 fewer people died of heart or crab disease in 2010, according to a spokeswoman for the agency. As a likely reason for this slight decline suspected a federal spokeswoman for the slight population decline in Germany. Whether healthier lifestyles played a role, can not be proven from the data.

The second most common cause was cancer
As in the past, the second leading cause of death in Germany in the year 2000 was cancer. About a quarter of the deceased succumbed to their cancer. In total, 218,889 people were affected, including 118,202 men and 100,687 women. Men died in most deaths of a new formation of a cancer of the digestive system (gastric carcinoma, kidney cancer). Still in the upper ranks ranked among the male deceased the cancers of the respiratory organs (lung cancer). The main cause of bronchial carcinoma is inhaled tobacco smoking. Women, on the other hand, died from cancer of the digestive organs and, as a single diagnosis, most often from breast cancer.

In 3.9 percent of the cases, those affected died of a non-natural cause of death. In 33,312 deaths, poisoning or injury was identified as the cause. In 30 percent of non-natural deaths, people put an end to their lives through suicide. While women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, in the majority of cases, men (74 percent) took their own lives. The rate was about three times higher than that of women.

Overall, 0.5 percent more people died last year compared to 2009. The year before, the death rate had already risen by 1.2 percent. Why one more and more people die, one spokeswoman could not name. However, statistical changes are not uncommon.

The attribution of causes should be a warning especially to people with obesity, unhealthy lifestyle and smoking. Anyone who quit smoking early in their lives, fed healthy food and integrated a lot of exercise into their everyday lives can significantly delay the time of death. Cardiovascular disease accounts for most of the diseases of developed countries and stem from unhealthy lifestyles. Older people over the age of 65 should take symptoms such as fatigue, disability, poor and leg swelling seriously. Here is a medical examination with a cardiologist or family doctor promptly displayed. (Sb)

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Picture credits: Gerd Altmann