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Query: UMLS:C0018799 (heart disease)
 34,133 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Marijuana seems firmly established as another social drug in Western countries, regardless of its current legal status. Patterns of use vary widely. As with other social drugs, the pattern of use is critical in determining adverse effects on health. Perhaps the major area of concern about marijuana use is among the very young. Using any drug on a regular basis that alters reality may be detrimental to the psychosocial maturation of young persons. Chronic use of marijuana may stunt the emotional growth of youngsters. Evidence for an amotivational syndrome is largely based on clinical reports; whether marijuana use is a cause or effect is uncertain. A marijuana psychosis, long rumored, has been difficult to prove. No one doubts that marijuana use may aggravate existing psychoses or other severe emotional disorders. Brain damage has not been proved. Physical dependence is rarely encountered in the usual patterns of social use, despite some degree of tolerance that may develop. The endocrine effects of the drug might be expected to delay puberty in prepubertal boys, but actual instances have been rare. As with any material that is smoked, chronic smoking of marijuana will produce bronchitis; emphysema or lung cancer have not yet been documented. Cardiovascular effects of the drug are harmful to those with preexisting heart disease; fortunately the number of users with such conditions is minimal. Fears that the drug might accumulate in the body to the point of toxicity have been groundless. The potential deleterious effects of marijuana use on driving ability seem to be self-evident; proof of such impairment has been more difficult. The drug is probably harmful when taken during pregnancy, but the risk is uncertain. One would be prudent to avoid marijuana during pregnancy, just as one would do with most other drugs not essential to life or well-being. No clinical consequences have been noted from the effects of the drug on immune response, chromosomes, or cell metabolites. Contamination of marijuana by spraying with defoliants has created the clearest danger to health; such attempts to control production should be abandoned. Therapeutic uses for marijuana, THC, or cannabinoid homologs are being actively explored. Only the synthetic homolog, nabilone, has been approved for use to control nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:Health aspects of cannabis. 352 Jun 5

A cohort study of 14179 current and former Chevron USA employees at the Richmond and El Segundo, California, refineries was conducted. The cohort consisted of everyone working at either refinery for a minimum of one year. The observed mortality of the cohort, by cause, was compared with the expected based on the United States mortality rates, standardised for age, race, sex, and calendar time. Analyses by refinery, job category, hire date, duration of employment, and latency were performed. For the entire cohort, mortality from all causes was 72.4% of that expected, a deficit that was statistically significant. In addition, a significantly lower mortality was found for all forms of cancer combined, digestive cancer, lung cancer, heart disease, non-malignant respiratory disease, diseases of the digestive system, and accidents. Only lymphopoietic cancer showed a pattern of increased risk suggestive of a possible relation to an occupational exposure. The excess appears confined to cancer of lymphatic tissue (not leukaemias) at Richmond, and only among those hired before 1948. A follow up case analysis of the deaths from lymphatic cancer failed to identify a common exposure pattern.
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PMID:An epidemiological study of petroleum refinery employees. 394 63

We compared total and cause-specific mortality for workers at the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly facility employed between 1951 and 31 December 1978 with expected mortality based on U.S. death rates. We observed significantly fewer deaths than expected from all causes of death, all cancers, digestive cancers, lung cancer, arteriosclerotic heart disease, and digestive diseases. There were no causes of death which occurred significantly more frequently than expected. Analyses of worker mortality by duration of employment, time since first employment, and radiation exposure greater than 1.00 rem produced similar results. We found no evidence that mortality from any cause of death was increased as a result of employment at Pantex.
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PMID:Mortality among workers at the Pantex weapons facility. 399 25

We investigated the relation of psychosocial risk factors to mortality in a prospective study of 1353 inhabitants of Crvenka, 619 of whom died between 1966 and 1976. All 38 lung cancer deaths occurred in those with high scores for rationality and antiemotionality (R/A), a factor related to suppression of aggression. Compared with lower R/A, high R/A was also associated with a relative risk of mortality of 29 for other cancer, 4.3 for ischaemic heart disease and 6.5 for stroke. Standardising for R/A reduced the smoking/lung cancer association, virtually eliminated the smoking/other cancer and smoking/heart disease relationships and reduced the association of heart disease with blood cholesterol, blood sugar and hypertension. Long lasting hopelessness was also independently associated with cancer as was anger with heart disease, though not so strongly as for R/A. Psychosocial variables are important predictors of mortality and decisively modify the effect of physical risk factors such as smoking.
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PMID:Psychosocial factors as strong predictors of mortality from cancer, ischaemic heart disease and stroke: the Yugoslav prospective study. 400 17

In a case control study of over 12 000 inpatients aged 35-74, risk of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and, particularly in those aged 35-54, ischaemic heart disease was positively associated with the number of manufactured cigarettes smoked daily and was negatively associated with long term giving up. Risk of stroke was not clearly related to smoking. Among manufactured cigarette smokers, lung cancer risk tended to be lowest in those who had always smoked filter cigarettes. This pattern was, however, evident only in men who additionally smoked pipes, cigars or handrolled cigarettes and in women, not being seen in men who smoked only manufactured cigarettes. Risk of lung cancer was not clearly related to time of switch to filter cigarettes. A markedly lower risk of chronic bronchitis was seen in men, but not women, who smoked filter rather than plain cigarettes. Heart disease risk did not vary by type of cigarette smoked 10 years before admission, but, compared with those who had never smoked filter cigarettes, those who had ever smoked filter cigarettes had a higher risk in men and a lower risk in younger women. Compared with the general population, markedly more controls were ex-smokers, suggesting incipient disease, whether or not smoking related, may alter smoking habits, thus affecting the interpretability of the findings. Control smokers were also relatively much more likely to report smoking plain cigarettes than expected. This comparison, not made in other studies relating risk to type of cigarette smoked, indicates that great care must be taken in verifying validity of reported smoking habits. While our findings are compatible with other evidence that risk of lung cancer and chronic bronchitis is probably reduced by switching from plain to filter cigarettes, they underline the difficulties in obtaining valid evidence from epidemiological studies.
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PMID:Risks of lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, ischaemic heart disease, and stroke in relation to type of cigarette smoked. 408 57

In the United States women live longer than men, and they have lower death rates at virtually every age and for most causes of death. Similar relationships prevail in most developed nations. The sex differential in mortality has been increasing since the early 1900s , especially for those 15-24 and 55-64 years of age. Since 1970, however, that trend has slowed for persons 45-74, and in 1980 the sex differential was actually lower than in 1970 among those 55-64. Although the female sex advantage in respect to most causes of death has been increasing, the differential for coronary heart disease has recently stabilized; and the lung cancer mortality rate among women is now increasing faster than that among men. Recent statistics for these two important causes of death may indicate that the previous, more favorable trend in women than in men may be reversing in response to changes in lifestyle. Women's health may be improving at a slower rate because they are exposed to more job stresses and other risk factors, such as cigarettes, than before; alternatively, men's health may be improving at a faster rate because they are exercising more, smoking cigarettes less, and following healthier diets in recent decades. Despite their continuing mortality advantage, women experience more illness than men. This may reflect women's greater utilization of medical services, and physicians' diagnostic patterns, as well as women's greater willingness to acknowledge and report illness. Sex differences in illness persist, however, when physical examinations are used for assessment in population-based samples. Women appear to have higher rates of conditions that rarely cause death, for example, rheumatoid arthritis; whereas men tend to have more fatal conditions, such as coronary heart disease. At least two categories of lifestyle characteristics are associated with male-female differences in health: (a) social roles, such as marriage, parenthood, and employment; and (b) behaviors, such as cigarette smoking and Type A behavior. Preliminary evidence indicates that some of these lifestyle characteristics may act synergistically on health. Several aspects of lifestyle thus underlie sex differences in morbidity and mortality. There is also evidence that biological factors influence male/female mortality differences, particularly in infancy and prenatal life. A substantial sex differential remains, however, even after adjusting for numerous lifestyle and biological variables. This is especially true for heart disease mortality.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:The sex differential in morbidity, mortality, and lifestyle. 637 18

Sex differences in mortality vary widely among the developed countries. Male overmortality is highest in Finland and the USSR, followed closely by France, Poland, the USA and Canada. The differential is lowest in Japan, Ireland and in south-eastern Europe. The sex mortality ratio is highest at ages 15-24 years with a second peak generally occurring around age 60. The excess mortality of males at the younger ages is due largely to motor vehicle accidents while higher death rates from heart disease and lung cancer in particular account for a substantial proportion of male excess mortality during the later years of working life. During the course of the 20th century, the impact of sex differences in mortality from the infectious and parasitic diseases has declined, as has the contribution from maternal mortality. Males have also benefited from a decline in industrial accidents but this has been more than countered by rising death rates from heart diseases, lung cancer and motor vehicle accidents.
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PMID:Using national mortality data to study the changing sex differential in mortality. 651 86

Mortality data on the leading causes of death conceal the relationship to underlying risk factors; if we classified deaths according to risk factors, annually there might be an estimated 350,000 smoking-related deaths, 200,000 alcohol-related deaths and 135,000 nutrition-related cancer deaths. Similarly, five causes of death-heart disease, lung cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, suicide and motor vehicle accidents-contribute most to the risk of dying in the next ten years for a 40-year-old white man. Review of protective factors shows that adopting and maintaining a healthful life-style can contribute to reducing risk. Practicing physicians can assume both direct and indirect roles in promoting personal health maintenance.
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PMID:Personal health promotion. 652 57

Accurate prevalence and incidence figures do not exist on a global basis, yet available data suggest that acute respiratory infections in children represent a problem of enormous magnitude. World Health Organization (WHO) data from 88 countries representing 1/4 of the world's population indicate that there are over 666,000 deaths annual from acute respiratory infections. Assuming that nonreporting countries have similar mortality rates, it can be calculated that there are at least 2.2 million deaths from acute respiratory infections throughout the world each year. Despite the enormity of the problem, relatively little is known about the factors that contribute to these deaths in children or adults, or about the extent to which they are due to unusual severity of the disease, lack of access to the health care system, and institutional or social factors. The causative agents are unknown. More knowledge is needed to mount an effective program for the prevention and treatment of acute respiratory infections. In Costa Rica mortality from this disease is 12 times higher in malnourished infants than in those of normal weight. Data from Papua, New Guinea indicate that Streptococcus pneumoniae and Hemophilus influenzae are common etiologic agents. More data of this kind are needed from different countries. Also needed is information on the availability and use of adequate medical care. People in developed countries run a greater risk of dying from lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases than do people in developing countries, but the chances of dying from acute respiratory infections generally exceed those of dying from lung cancer or cardiovascular disease in the developing countries. When evaluating the seriousness of a public health problem it is important to consider the number of years of life that have been lost as well as morbidity and mortality. If there are 2.2 million deaths in the world from acute respiratory infections in children under the age of 1 year, then each year there are almost 200 million death years lost because of acute respiratory infections in the world. Thus, on a global scale acute respiratory infections represent a public health problem of greater magnitude than either heart disease or cancer. The fact that the annual WHO budget for heart disease is at least 50 times higher than the budget for all forms of respiratory disease represents seriously misplaced priorities. Properly organized research programs into the etiologic agents involved in acute respiratory infection, together with data collection on other contributing factors, are required so that effective prevention and treatment programs can be initiated.
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PMID:Acute respiratory infections in children. A global public-health problem. 670 Jun 93

This retrospective cohort study examines mortality and cancer incidence among 3,686 men and 75 women who were employed as chemists in 1959. During the period 1964 to 1977, the male chemists experienced lower overall mortality than other salaried employees of the chemical company (198 deaths observed, 241.0 expected, SMR = 82). Large deficits are seen in lung cancer and arteriosclerotic heart disease death. The chemist appear to be at slightly higher risk for death from malignancies of the colon (12 observed, 6.7 expected, SMR = 178) and from cerebrovascular disease (15 observed, 10.8 expected, SMR = 138). The low overall mortality resulted in a larger than expected proportion of deaths due to cancer. Fewer than expected cases were diagnosed of cancer of all sited combined (61 observed, 86.5 expected, SIR = 71) and of the lung (8 observed, 20.0 expected, SIR = 40). The incidence rates of melanoma and of cancer of the prostate are slightly higher than expected, relative to the Third National Cancer Survey and the experience of nonchemists, respectively. Among female chemists, deaths due to all causes and suicide occurred more frequently than expected. Possible explanations for the lack of anticipated excess risks and for the observed deficits are presented.
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PMID:A retrospective cohort study of mortality and cancer incidence among chemist. 725 10


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