\r\n \r\n The map, if accurate, tells me one thing for sure. Cigarette smoking is not as responsible for Heart Disease as they play it up to be.
\n
\nI live in Minnesota, and our smoking rate is not any lower than anyplace else. As a matter of fact, Northern Minnesota has a higher than average rate of smoking, and yet the whole state has a low rate for Heart Disease. Other than the metro area of Minneapolis/ St Paul, the air is pretty clean of most pollutants. Cleaner than most areas.
\n
\nApparently, pollution related to population density and/ or industry plays a larger role than cigarette smoking.
\n
\nDan\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I don\'t believe heart attacks are caused by smoking. I believe the real cause is prescription pharmaceuticals. The reason the "experts" blame cigarette smoke is to take the focus off the drugs.
\nI think people are foolish to think that good health comes in a pill and continue to swallow their daily dose of poison because someone in a white coat told them to.\r\n

\r\n __________________
\r\n Doctors give drugs of which they know little,
\ninto bodies, of which they know less,
\nfor diseases of which they know nothing at all.
\nVoltaire\r\n

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\r\n \r\n This is a great site for discussion on heart disease. I am glad I found it. Its interesting to hear peoples perspective.
\n
\nDan, I used to live in Minneapolis from \'91 to \'98. Loved Minnesota.
\n
\nI have been studying the heart attack map for several years now. I will also post other maps. Obesity map, lung cancer map, diabetes map, poverty map, pollution map, longevity map. You can click through the maps and compare for yourselves.
\n
\nAs you click through the maps, everyone will probably want to move to join Dan in Minnesota, or move to the high country in Colorado.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n My father died at the age of 41 from a massive coronary. He never took perscription drugs, but he did smoke like a chiminey and ate lots of white bread with marjorine... as well as being a driven high stessed angry man with a closed heart who periodically beat his son.
\n
\nI think he fit the cardiac profile to a T.
\n
\nOn the other hand my husband smokes like a chimney since about the age of 14 and has outstanding health. Last chest x-ray about 5 years ago showed absolutely nothing. Low BP, vascular disease slight according to carotid artery sonogram... At 61 he is building a house, doing landscaping, etc. He is a very low stress person.. and even his years at a high powered job where he was responsible for multimillion dollar construction projects and working 12 hour days he was mostly low stress psychologically.
\n
\nMy mom smoked like a chimney too and her heart was strong until the end at 79, even with bad lungs from COPD... and she ate all that hydrogenated fat crap too and lots of sugar and endured the stress of losing her mate with small children still to raise, no income and the ensuing depression.
\n
\nThere are so many variables... \r\n

\r\n __________________
\r\n \r\n

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\r\n \r\n Trend maps change. The population of areas change due to our mobile society. In 2011, the leading edge of that giant baby boom generation will turn 65. People are finding retirement areas. I did early. There is a nearby retirement community (near Austin) that is 90% Californian. I\'m not kidding. This early migration has kept the home prices in the Austin area very stable.
\n
\nThe baby boom started in 1946 and ended in 1964.
\n
\nI don\'t trust such maps, other than for mild interest.\r\n

\r\n __________________
\r\n -
\n- Jim
\nLife is just one damned thing after another - Elbert Hubbard
\n
\n\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I would like to see research correlating the eating of white bread and processed grains with heart attacks... Im willing to bet thats the better picture. I remember when I was little, mom use to make paste for art projects out of white flour and water..... Surely putting all that white flour into our systems is just like glueing it all together!\r\n

\r\n __________________
\r\n God is and all is well
\r\n~John Greenleaf Whittier~\r\n

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\r\n \r\n Maybe Minnesota looks good from the heart disease perspective, but if you look at the Lyme Disease map, it is not too attractive.
\n
\nhttps://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_LymeFacts/lymefac.pdf
\n
\nIf you look at our Winter temperatures, you will likely think we are insane. We may be, as the schizophrenia map mimics the Lyme Disease map pretty closely. So does the MS map.
\n
\nhttps://lymefacts.webs.com/thegreatimitator.htm
\n
\nIt shows that a single factor of anything, does not mean much in the larger scheme of things. All places have there strong and weak suits.
\n
\nDan\r\n

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\r\n \r\n As much as i liked living in Minnesota, no place is perfect. Disease statistics change from state to state.
\n
\nOne thing interesting about the Heart attack map statistics, when we zoom in on each individual state, and examine the death rate comparisons at the state level, some interesting things come to surface.
\n
\nLook at Mississippi on the national map posted in the link on my original post.
\nMost of Mississippi is dark red, high death rates compared to the rest of the Nation.
\nBut when we zoom in on missisippi we can compare the rates within the state.
\nLook at Louisiana and Arkansas and Tennessee on the state level as well and you will quickly note an important observation.
\n
\nOBSERVATION: In the southern Mississippi river valley, the closer you get to the river, the greater the death rates from heart disease.
\n
\nWHY?
\n
\nI think I know why. The answer is the same reason cardiovascular death rates are so high in NYC. High levels of particulate air pollution.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n Mississippi Valley has something else nasty lurking underground, URANIUM, which could be causing higher heart disease.
\n
\nFirst real interest in uranium by the government in the area and serious research undertaken in the 1970\'s, when the drinking water was tested and the Government said it was at a safe level.
\n
\nSince that time the safe levels for uranium in drinking water have been revised downwards substantially. Continuous ingestion of water at high uranium level damages kidneys and increases BP and heart disease.
\n
\nSociological map shows the high density of black citizens in the area. Black citizens seem prone genetically to high BP as well, which makes ingesting even moderate levels of uranium hazardous for heart health.
\n
\nhttps://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/library/maps/sd_black_2000.htm
\n
\nMV has a lot of interest recently by mining companies who want to open mines in the area because of the decision to build more nuclear power stations. If they start digging and disturbing the earth there could be higher levels of uranium being into ground water.
\n
\nhttps://ktar.com/?sid=1053268&nid=48\r\n

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\r\n \r\n Arrowwind,
\n
\nI had a grandmother who lived to 101. She grew up on lard. Smoked for 25 years of her life. Was always a little overweight. Never exercised, and lived to be 101 with no clogged artery issues. She did have other health issues along the way, but never cardiovascular.
\n
\nShe lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n there has been lots of cancer in Idaho and Nevada from radioactivity. Just 50 miles down the road from me the cancer rates skyrocket due to nuclear bomb testing... its similar in Nevada... I ve met whole families who have cancer..fairly young too. I\'ve never heard that uranaium or radio activity causes heart disease... and if it were so it would be happening here..and amongst Navajo indians... their plague is diabetes and cancer..cancer from uranium. The areas on the map with the lowest heart dieases have very high cancer rates from either uranium or testing of nuclear bombs.-' + '- look at New Mexico too. Lots of uranium blowing around there and tailing piles etc and god knows where it is cause the governement just threw it any old place back in the 50\'s
\n
\nMy opinion is that uranium and radio activity from nuclear testing is causing the sky high ever increaseing stats for lung cancer...it blows in the wind and everyone is breathes it in \r\n

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\r\n \r\n Ok, here we go. Ready to compare data maps back to back. Heart disease is the central issue. The other maps show geographic boundaries of other issues that may be risk factors in common with heart disease.
\n
\n1. Heart attack map:
\nhttps://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/library/map...se_map_all.htm
\n
\n2. Diabetes map:
\nhttps://irjci.blogspot.com/2009/11/ap...-diabetes.html
\n
\nBlood pressure map:
\nhttps://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/library/fs_bloodpressure.htm
\n
\nSmoking map:
\nhttps://www.statemaster.com/red/graph...mokers&b_map=1\r\n

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\r\n \r\n And here is more-
\n
\nLung Cancer Map:
\nhttps://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/statistics/state.htm\r\n

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\r\n \r\n The longevity map: Produced by a Harvard study 1997-2001-
\n
\nhttps://www.seattlepi.com/national/28...ngevity12.html
\n
\n
\n
\nUS poverty map:
\nhttps://www.visualizingeconomics.com/...s-poverty-map/\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I lived in minneapolis twice. I have to say I really could not stand it. Good points: great live music and a great ethnic restaurant scene. Except for that, it was actually living vicariously in the movie Fargo.
\n
\nAs for the heart attack map, AL, MS and WV peak. They also eat tons of pure crap and smoke. They will fry anything. Good find!\r\n

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