All-cause and cardiovascular mortality worldwide: lessons from geopathology

Highly significant age-specific differences in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality rates are reported throughout the world. Male mortality is always higher than female mortality, but the sex ratio of mortality rates decreases with age. In most Western countries, all-cause mortality rates have been decreasing during the last 25 years. This decrease is almost uniquely due to a decrease in cardiovascular mortality. It is of crucial importance to try to determine the causes of these differences in mortality at the population level. Many factors may influence mortality: the level of medical care, genetic factors, nutrition, smoking habits, pollution, stress, socioeconomic factors, level of physical activity, etc. Of all the factors considered, nutritional habits and smoking combined with a high saturated fat intake appear to offer the most logical explanation for the existing differences in mortality. The intake of saturated fat has been linked to both cardiovascular and cancer mortality. Based on the modifications in the intercept and slope of the regression lines derived from the Gompertz equation (log mortality versus age) applied to a given population at a specific time, it has been possible to show that nutritional factors influence the aging process. The Gompertz equations point to the existence of a maximum age for the human race. Caution should be exercised when extrapolating population findings to individual subjects, in whom specific factors, e.g., genetic factors, may prevail.