1997-2017 Leading Causes of Death Information Due to Diabetes, Neoplasms, and Diseases of the Circulatory System, Issues Cautionary Weight-Related Lesson to the US Population at Large

In the US, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes are in the top ten leading causes of death categories. The diseases compromise US life-expectancy and account for significant US health-care costs. This observational study investigates the US population's 1997-2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER ICD-10 mortality records to extract the prevalence rates for leading causes of death by diabetes, neoplasms (cancers), and diseases of the circulatory system. The variables of race and age are examined for each disease in order to evaluate demographic and age-group risks. To document the public health burden from these three chronic conditions, mortality data from CDC WONDER was analyzed using MS-Excel and Statistical Analysis System (SAS) software. The general trend of deaths by diabetes, neoplasms, and diseases of the circulatory system has been progressively decreasing nationally; however, a significantly higher trend in mortality rates is observed for the Black or African American populations. Furthermore, over the 1997-2017 observational period, the crude mortality rates for the 45-54 (middle-age) and lower age-groups are below national mortality rate averages but are troublingly increasing for diabetes and notably, for the diseases of the circulatory system, the (younger) 25-34 age-group had a crude mortality rate increase of 6.78%.