Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift
-
Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. · Apr 2022
Letter[Considerations on Excess Mortality in Germany in the year 2020 and 2021].
At the end of 2020, in Germany a discussion broke out whether the past year was characterized by excess mortality. The opposite positions arose primarily from the way data was processed. In order to correct systematic trends of the last two decades, in the present study the annual death rates for Germany were calculated as the difference to those of the year 2000 and a polynomial fit of 2nd order was carried out for the total population and for the groups of people below and from 80 years of age. ⋯ For the total population there were excess mortality rates for 2020 and 2021 with 11 500 and 10 468 deaths respectively, which in which in total is completely covered by the excess mortality of those aged 80 and over. In the age group below 80 years there was no excess mortality in the two years. For all age groups, excess mortality was most prominent in the year 2003.
-
Arterial hypertension affects about one third of the German population with a prevalence increasing with age up to 60 %. Globally, more than a quarter gedoppelt of the population are considered hypertensive, resulting in a total of more than one billion people. ⋯ Less than every second patient knows about his or her disease status and less than 40 % of patients in Europe show adequate blood pressure control with a treatment target of < 140/90 mmHg despite antihypertensive treatment. This overview of arterial hypertension, its etiology, diagnostic tools, and therapeutic options aims to improve the understanding of arterial hypertension and to facilitate the diagnostic and therapeutic approach, eventually resulting in a better and more successful handling of patients with arterial hypertension.