Cancer and heart disease were the two leading causes of deaths for Canadians, responsible for 52.4 per cent of all deaths in 2004, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.

Between 2000 and 2004, age-standardized mortality rates declined for all 10 leading causes of death, except for diabetes, influenza and pneumonia. To eliminate the impact of population aging on death rates, comparisons over time were made using age-standardized mortality rates.

Of the 226,584 deaths in 2004, the 10 leading causes were:

  • Cancer — 29.5 per cent.
  • Heart disease — 22.9 per cent.
  • Stroke — 6.5 per cent.
  • Chronic lower respiratory diseases — 4.4 per cent.
  • Accidents or unintentional injuries — 4.0 per cent.
  • Diabetes mellitus or diabetes — 3.5 per cent.
  • Influenza and pneumonia — 2.5 per cent.
  • Alzheimer's disease — 2.4 per cent.
  • Intentional self-harm or suicide — 1.6 per cent.
  • Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis or kidney disease — 1.6 per cent.

The most noticeable increase in proportion of leading causes of death was for diabetes, which went from 3.1 per cent in 2000 to 3.5 per cent in 2004, according to the report.

From 2000 to 2004, the ranking order of the 10 leading causes of death stayed the same, except that influenza and pneumonia outnumbered Alzheimer's for the seventh ranking in 2004.

Accidents top cause of death for younger Canadians

The top three leading causes of deaths for those aged 15 to 24, 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 were unintentional injuries, suicide and cancer. The relative burden of these three causes combined was responsible for 71.3 per cent, 63.1 per cent and 56.2 per cent of deaths for these age groups, respectively.

Cancer, heart disease and stroke were the top three leading causes of deaths for men and women, which remained unchanged between 2000 and 2004. Unintentional injuries were the fourth-leading cause of death among men, but seventh among women. Suicide was the seventh-leading cause among men, but tenth for women.

While cancer outranked heart disease as the most common cause of death in Canada in 2004, the rankings were reversed in the U.S. that year. In the U.S., about 23 per cent of all deaths were attributed to cancer, compared with about 30 per cent in Canada. Conversely, 27 per cent of all deaths were attributed to heart disease in the United States, compared with 23 per cent in Canada.

For those aged 15 to 24, homicide ranked fourth in Canada and second in the United States. For the same age group, suicide ranked second in Canada and third in the United States.