Showing papers on "Social stress published in 1970"

Social stress and coronary heart disease in Japan. A hypothesis.

Abstract: Japan has one of the lowest rates of coronary heart disease in the world; the United States, one of the highest. In 19601961, the white male American possessed the highest known age-adjusted death rate in the world for arteriosclerotic and degenerative heart disease—326.2 per 100,000, as compared to 67.8 for the Japanese male.1 The standardized male mortality ratio for coronary heart disease, according to Haenszel and Kurihara,2 was 481 white Americans for every 100 Japanese. In a 1962 symposium the ratio of the death rate from coronary heart disease to the total death rate was reported as 33.2 for U. S. whites and 8.7 for Japanese.3 For Japanese men age 5054, the death rate in 1953-1954 was less than a tenth of that for white American men.4 Coronary heart disease remains the most serious health problem for the middle-aged U. S. male. This remarkable difference between Japan and the United States in their respective tendency to coronary heart disease cannot be regarded as merely accidental, nor is it possible to foist the blame entirely on hereditary or ethnic factors. Any racial tendency toward disease of the heart or vessels is dis­ counted by comparison of rates for Japanese residing in Japan, in Hawaii, and in the continental United States. Gordon, in his provocative article, noted that the trend for the Japanese

Stress and coronary heart disease. Preventive implications.

Abstract: Stress, defined here as a challenge to the organism, has long been implicated as a cause of coronary disease. Major progress in controlling this disease will be by prevention, which in this case is the effort to postpone the onset of illness. An environmental approach is proposed, using social stress as a starting point.