Dementia is poised to overtake heart disease as Australia’s leading cause of death, a first in the country’s history. ()

According to the data, which was published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ischemic heart disease, also called coronary heart disease and coronary artery disease, was responsible for 9.2 percent of deaths in Australia in 2023, while dementia accounted for 9.1 percent, reports Xinhua news agency.

Lauren Moran, head of mortality statistics at the bureau, said that there has been a drop in heart disease mortality and a rise in dementia deaths over time due to improvements in medical treatments and health care for the former and an ageing population.

Dementia Surges as Heart Disease Mortality Plummets in Australia

At its peak in 1968, ischemic heart disease accounted for 30.5 percent of Australian deaths. Over the last 50 years, the bureau said that the mortality rate for ischemic heart disease has declined 87.9 percent while that for dementia has increased 842.8 percent in the same period.

“The latest data shows that there are now less than 250 deaths separating the top two leading causes,” Moran said in a statement.

“Women have longer life expectancies than men and, as such, are more likely to live to an age when they have a heightened risk of developing dementia,” Moran said.

Overall, there were 183,131 deaths recorded in Australia in 2023, a decrease of 7,808 from 2022.The number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 fell by almost half from 9,862 in 2022, when it was the third-leading cause of death in Australia, to 5,001 in 2023.There were 3,214 people who died by suicide in Australia in 2023, with men making up approximately 75 percent of those deaths.

The median age at death for people who died by suicide in 2023 was 45.5 years, making it the leading cause of premature death.

Reference:

1. Australia’s leading cause of death on the brink of change – (https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/australias-leading-cause-death-brink-change)

Source-IANS