Lifestyle blamed for third of Snohomish County deaths

Would you like a prescription to help you live longer?

Stop smoking. Pass up the double cheeseburgers. Or at the very least, take a walk around the block a little more often.

Those are some of the messages from a new chronic disease report by the Snohomish Health District, outlining the diseases people in the county most often die from.

It found that tobacco use, poor diet and physical inactivity are responsible for one-third of all deaths in the county, said Dr. Gary Goldbaum, health officer for the Snohomish Health District.

This is the first time the Snohomish Health District has compiled an overall report on chronic disease.

Goldbaum said he’s concerned that people are living in an environment that discourages them from getting enough physical activity and making healthy eating choices.

“It’s a whole lot easier to reach for fast-food snacks than prepare fresh fruits and vegetables,” he said. “It’s a whole lot easier to hop in the car to go shopping; it’s a whole lot harder to motivate yourself for that walking in the evenings or on weekends.”

The challenge, he said, is to help communities build environments that support physical activity and healthy diet choices in schools, the workplace and at home.

Overall, the report found that Snohomish County residents are more likely to die of cancer than heart disease.

But the most common types of cancer — breast and prostate — aren’t the most deadly.

People are most likely to die from lung and colon cancer, it says.

Whites and American Indians had the highest rates of lung cancer, while Asians, Pacific Islanders and Hispanics had the lowest, it found.

With colon cancer, men are far more likely to be diagnosed with the disease than women.

About 90 percent of people diagnosed with colon cancer are older than 50. Lack of physical activity increases one’s chances for developing colon cancer, the reports notes, as does eating food that is high in fat.

While the disease can be deadly, if it is detected before it spreads beyond the colon, patients have an 80 percent chance of long-term survival.

The report is based on an analysis of information from 2006, the most recent available, of death certificates, hospital records and information from a telephone survey conducted in the county by the state Department of Health.

With tobacco use, poor diet and physical inactivity the cause of one-third of all deaths in the county, that meant in 2006, 749 people died from smoking-related illnesses and 629 from complications related to poor diet and physical inactivity, Goldbaum said. *

Physical activity and good nutrition can be key factors in preventing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, he said.

“What we’re seeing is an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes, which follows from the epidemic of obesity,” Goldbaum said.

Diabetes is the seventh most common cause of death in Snohomish County. The number of people who have the disease has doubled since 1994, Goldbaum said.

Many of its complications, such as high blood pressure, heart disease and high cholesterol, are preventable, he said.

It’s only been in the last several years that cancer has overtaken heart disease as the No. 1 cause of death in the county.

“A lot of it is related to improvement in heart health,” the steps taken to cut down on heart disease, said Dr. Oliver Batson, an oncologist with The Everett Clinic.

Cancer is predominantly a disease of older adults, he said. “Basically as we get older, the risk of getting cancer, including breast, prostate and most other major cancers, go up as the years go by.”

The number of people dying of Alzheimer’s disease has increased dramatically, now ranking as the fifth most common cause of death in Snohomish County. In part this is because the disease is tracked more closely, Goldbaum said.

Women are more likely to have the disease than men, he said, and whites have higher rates than blacks and other minorities.

In the past, the cause of death for someone with Alzheimer’s disease may have been listed as pneumonia. “Now we may say it was someone who had Alzheimer’s; pneumonia was just the last step.”

Only a small percentage of people, probably less than 10 percent, inherits the disease, said Dr. Eric P. Gierke, a neurologist with The Everett Clinic.

People with Alzheimer’s will probably die younger than they would have had they not developed the disease, he said.

Alzheimer’s causes a number of problems that lead to death, including increased chances of falling, catching pneumonia, and having difficulty swallowing, which can cause choking, he said.

Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.

*Correction, Jan. 27, 2009: This article originally listed incorrect totals for deaths in the county attributed to smoking, eating a poor diet and being physically inactive.