Report of a ten-year follow-up study of the San Francisco Longshoremen: Mortality from coronary heart disease and from all causes

Abstract

1. 1. The results of a ten-year follow-up on mortality from coronary heart disease and from all causes, in a previously-examined population are presented. 2. 2. The association between cigarette smoking and mortality from coronary heart disease and from all causes among those men who, in 1951, revealed no abnormalities related to cardiopulmonary diseases, was ascertained. It was found that over the age of 45, those men who smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day experienced a much higher death rate than did the ‘nonsmokers’. 3. 3. Grouping the individuals according to their 1951 systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings, and associating it with mortality from coronary heart disease and from all causes, it was found that the higher the systolic or diastolic blood pressure in 1951, the greater was the risk of mortality during the ensuing ten years. However, the gradient for diastolic blood pressure was not as steep as for systolic blood pressure. Throughout the age range 45–64, the mortality among hypertensive smokers was approximately 9–10 times as high as that of ‘nonhypertensive nonsmokers’. 4. 4. Both for smokers and ‘nonsmokers’, and in each age group, the men who had abnormal electrocardiograms in 1951 had a death rate approximately three times as high as those who did not have abnormal electrocardiograms. 5. 5. Using the Metropolitan tables of weight for height, the examined men were grouped into four classes referred to as ‘not overweight’, ‘slightly overweight’, ‘moderately overweight’ and ‘markedly overweight’. The mortality rates, both among smokers and ‘nonsmokers’ and in each age group, varied only slightly with the above-mentioned weight classification. We found no indication of a steady gradient between mortality and degree of overweight in this population. 6. 6. The value of multiphasic screening examination as an effective case-finding tool for early detection of chronic diseases has been indicated.