The Top 10 Leading Causes of Death in America

Source: wegohealth.com | At a party recently I was having a conversation with someone about the health research I do and the subject of the top 10 leading causes of death in America came up. (Don't you want to invite me to all your parties??) I was 100% certain that Alzheimer's Disease is #7 but I couldn't remember the exact order of the other ones. Can you name all 10 in order without checking?

Here's the list according to the CDC including # of deaths/year:

1) Heart disease - 631,636

2) Cancer - 599,888

3) Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) - 137,119

4) Chronic lower respiratory disease - 124,583

5) Accidents (unintentional injuries) - 121,599

6) Diabetes - 72,449

7) Alzheimer's disease - 72,432

8) Influenza & Pneumonia - 56,326

9) Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, nephrosis) - 45,344

10) "Blood poisoning" - Septicemia - 34,234

What do you think?

The first thing I thought when I read this list was - cancer is grouped together?

Very minimal digging brought me to this list of the most common types of cancer and how many new cases were estimated and how many deaths it has claimed in 2009 from the NCI:

Where you surprised by this chart?

Are these lists helpful at all? Are they daunting or too vague?

I wonder if seeing (or hearing) these lists isn't enough. It's easy to hear the name of a condition and dismiss it. Maybe because there aren't in-depth personal struggles attached. Is there a a clue within the breast cancer movement that we could apply to these other types of cancer as far as giving a face to a condition? What do you think? Are these lists the bare-minimum people should know when it comes to health? Where do they fit in?