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Something
about New York Strikes at the Heart
[1] People who live in New York City -- and even those who are just
visiting the city -- are more likely than other Americans to die of heart
attacks, according to researchers from California.
[2] And as soon as visitors leave, the researchers said, the chance
that their deaths will be caused by a heart attack declines.
[3] The study did not address whether the lives of New Yorkers or visitors
to the city are cut shorter than average, but rather suggested that heart
attack is the more common cause when death occurs than it is elsewhere
in the United States, said the researchers, who are scheduled to discuss
their findings at a scientific meeting in San Diego on Friday.
[4] They drew their conclusions from a computer analysis of data from
20 million death certificates in New York and 10 other cities. They could
not explain the finding, but they and other experts in heart disease listed
a variety of possible factors, including stress, overexcitement, heavy
traffic that delays ambulances and even inconsistencies in filling out
death certificates. Some health experts have long voiced doubts about the
accuracy of death certificates, saying that some doctors list heart attacks
when the actual cause may not have been found.
[5] The researchers, from the University of California at San Diego,
compiled death certificate data from 1985 to 1994 and used computers to
determine the number of deaths by heart attacks. They found that death
rates from heart attacks among New York residents were 55 percent higher
than the American average. The rates among visitors were 33 percent higher,
and the number of people who died of heart attacks after they left the
city was 20 percent lower than what they would have been in New York.
[6] The team then studied 10 other cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston,
Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego, Phoenix, Detroit, San Antonio and San
Jose. Deaths from heart attacks in those cities did not vary significantly
from the national averages.
[7] The study accounted for differences in age, race and sex; for example,
the researchers compared death rates among people over 90 in New York City
with those in the same age group in the other cities.
[8] Nicholas Christenfeld, a professor of psychology who directed the
study, said he and his colleagues could not explain what set New York City
apart.
[9] ''It could be stress,'' he said. ''It could be the thrill of going
into the Museum of Modern Art or despair of trying to hail a taxi during
a rainstorm. But what we do conclude is that there is an acute effect of
being in New York. And it is not an experience other American cities can
provide.''
[10] Dr. Philip Greenland, chairman of American Heart Association's
population science committee, said the findings on visitors were particularly
surprising, because ''these are presumably are mobile, relatively healthy
people.'' |