An unexpected periodicity among the prevalences of human age-related, mortal diseases

A periodic pattern was discovered among the relative number of deaths per year for the major age-related diseases in humans. This pattern was observed among 178 causes-of-death composed of male and female. White (U.S.A.), Black (U.S.A.) and Japanese (Japan) populations. Both descriptive (Fourier transform) and statistical analysis procedures revealed evidence that the pattern resulted from the presence of an underlying power progression between disease prevalences, with a factor of approximately 2.0 between sizes. This periodicity was highly unlikely to have occurred by chance (P much less than 0.01). The presence of such a power progression suggests that the sizes of the various fractions of the total population, that are afflicted with these mortal diseases, are determined by forces intrinsic to the population and probably result from a common mechanism.