Seven-year follow-up of cardiovascular study and maximal exercise of Chinese men.

A seven-year follow-up in 1973 of a prospective cardiovascular study of 1820 initially, healthy, middle-aged Chinese men of 40-59 years of age identified 1745 (95.9%) known survivors, 49 (2.7%) interim deaths, and 26 (1.4) who could not be traced. Of the survivors, 1462 (83.8%) were re-examined, 292 (16.7%) had another treadmill test of maximal exercise, and 283 (16.2%) failed to return for re-examination. On the basis of interim surveillance of hospital admissions, questionnaires and re-examination, a greater incidence of noncardiovascular events (338 or 18.6%) than evidence of cardiovascular disease (220 or 12.1%) was found while the majority (1021 or 56.1%) remained healthy. Total mortality was 0.29 for men under 50 and 0.76 per 100 person-years for men of 50 or more years of age. Only nine, or 18.4% of the deaths were due to cardiovascular causes, and unexpectedly for this population sample, only three were attributed to stroke. When cardiovascular morbidity was related to presence of ST depression af...