Cancer Is Now The Leading Cause Of Death In 22 States Of America, CDC Says

First Posted: Aug 25, 2016 05:09 AM EDT
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The mortality rate of cancer is augmenting in several states of America. It is now the leading cause of death in these states surpassing that of heart disease.

According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were only 2 states where the cancer was the leading cause of death in 2000. This has changed significantly as the findings showed there were 22 states where cancer mortality rate was the highest in 2014. The said killer disease is now the leading cause of death for the non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander and Hispanic populations.

The gap between the two killer diseases is small. Demographers stated that cancer may surpass heart disease in few more years. The heart disease declined since the early 1990s as the leading cause of death. It then rose in between 2011 and 2014, the heart disease mortality rate grew to 3 percent compared with a 2.6 percent for cancer.

It is reported that cancer now claims more lives than any other cause of death among some groups of Americans. The National Vital Statistics System recorded 9,069 cancer deaths, compared with 8,949 for heart disease in 2000. The Asian Americans were the first to succumbed to cancer that same year. Since then, it grew by 79.6 percent (to 16,292). On the other hand, the annual heart disease fatalities augmented to 45.5 percent (to 13,021).

Next to Asian Americans were the Latinos, with 29,935 cancer deaths and 29, 611 heart disease deaths in 2009. This has widened with 36,447 cancer deaths and 34,021 heart disease deaths in 2014.

The first state where cancer deaths lead was Alaska in the year 1990, A decade later, it was followed by Minnesota. Since 2000, the other 20 states where cancer has been the leading cause of death include California, Delaware, Arizona, Kansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Kentucky, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, North Carolina, Hew Hampshire, Wisconsin, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.

Nationwide, the heart disease is still the top killer disease of Americans. There were about 614,348 Americans died of heart disease in 2014. Meanwhile, about 591,699 Americans departed from cancer. This was based on the tally death certificates from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to Los Angeles Times.

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