Abstract
MORTALITY from falls in old people is so closely related to mortality from fractures of long bones, particularly of the proximal femur, that it seems to be related to bone fragility1–3. Although the mortality of women aged 75 yr and over is more than 50% higher than that of old men, there has been a close relationship between male and female annual mortalities in both Britain and the United States. This suggests that some common contemporary factors affected the mortality, and possibly the bone fragility, of each sex, even though their total experiences of mortality were substantially different. The evidence presented here suggests that coal smoke is one such factor.
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EDDY, T. Coal smoke and mortality of the elderly. Nature 251, 136–138 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/251136a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/251136a0
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