Epidemiology of heart diseases in rural areas of Japan.

Abstract

The recent trend of death rates from heart diseases, respectively at farm villages, fishing hamlets, and large towns in Japan, was examined in the variety of existing vital statistics.The chief conclusions are as follows.The trend of crude death rate from heart diseases, for the past ten years, has been year by year rather increasing. Now, examining the death rate by age groups, we find that, at the advanced age over eighty, it has by bits increased, but, at the age below that, it has rather decreased. As for the type of diseases, ischemic heart disease has increased a little at the advanced age, but below the middle age, it has rather decreased, and chronic rheumatic and hypertensive heart diseases have also decreased. On the other hand, heart failure and other heart diseases have rather increased.Examining the trend of death rates from heart diseases for the past 25 years, classified, by using the proportion of industrial inhabitants, into the prefecture of farming, that of fishing, and large cities, we find that the death rate from ischemic heart diseases has been high as to the advanced age in large cities, and the death rate from heart failure and other heart diseases has been high as to the advanced and middle ages in the prefecture of farming.From the above, it has become clear that the chief cause of the increases of heart diseases of recent years is the increase of heart failure and other heart diseases, and that it is chiefly discernible at farming villages.Next, we investigated the death rate. from heart diseases separately of villeges which may intimately be related to our lives, in respect of the three villages and towns in the West Izu. The result is that the death rate is high in the towns, and then in the district of farming, and is the lowest in that of fishing. This kind of examination is expected to be done widely in Japan, and the universal conclusion to be got.In addition to the above, we investigated the trend of death rate from heart diseases, from the “ Special Report of Vital Statistics: Occupational and Industrial Aspect”, and we clarified and reported that the death rate of agriculture, forestry and fishing workers, as well as urban occupation, was high in degree, and that, from the investigation separately of the cities, towns and villages of Chiba Prefecture, there was a statistically significant relation between the ratio of agricultural population and the death rate from heart diseases.