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A study of the relationship between water hardness and heart disease mortality in British Columbia

University of British Columbia

Several studies have indicated an inverse relationship between the hardness of community water supplies and deaths due to heart disease. In this thesis, studies of water hardness and heart disease are briefly reviewed; the role of water hardness in heart disease mortality is assessed; and, the hypothesis that soft water contributes to heart disease mortality is tested using data for 103 cities in British Columbia. The correlations of water hardness, waterborne calcium, and waterborne magnesium with sex-specific age-standardized heart disease mortality rates were not statistically-significant nor does the geographical pattern suggest any obvious relationship. The effects of water hardness on human heart-related mortality are difficult to separate from the effects of smoking, high-cholesterol diets, and other heart disease risk factors at the level of ecological correlation.

Text

2010-07-18

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26627

Geography

University of British Columbia

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