BOSTON, April 28 (UPI) -- Smoking and high blood pressure produce the greatest number of unnecessary deaths -- each account for 1 in 5 preventable U.S. deaths, researchers say.
The study, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, finds that other dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors also cause a substantial number of deaths in the United States.
Majid Ezzati of the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues estimated the number of preventable deaths caused by 12 selected risk factors.
These are factors related to lifestyle, including smoking and physical inactivity; dietary factors, such as high salt intake and low intake of fruit and vegetables; and metabolic factors that often result from diet and lifestyle but may also have clinical interventions such as high blood pressure and blood glucose.
Of the 2.5 million U.S. deaths in 2005, the researchers estimated nearly 470,000 were associated with tobacco smoking and nearly 400,000 with high blood pressure. Being overweight or obese accounted for nearly 1 in 10 deaths of U.S. adults, while high salt intake was responsible for 1 in 25 deaths, the study said.
