After a decade and a half of rapid increase, adult mortality rates in the U.S.S.R. appear to have turned downward. As would be expected given the role played by coronary heart disease in producing this rise in mortality, fewer coronary deaths have been recorded in the U.S.S.R. in recent years. If this trend persists, the Soviet Union will join a number of other industrialized countries that have succeeded in curbing the coronary heart disease epidemic.
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