In addition, many presentations at scientific meetings and conferences have been held. The citation of these articles is included under the Publications section.

During the 1950's, publications were primarily based on case reports and the publications included reports of unusual conduction abnormalities found on routine electrocardiograms in otherwise healthy individuals. The benign nature of some conditions in otherwise healthy men was documented.

During the 1960's, more data had been accumulated and two reports were published in the prestigous journal, Circulation, based on documented major and minor variants in the electrocardiograms of approximately 200 members. This was a huge undertaking at the time, in that the data had to be analyzed manually, and Dr. Mathewson was aided in the analysis by biostatisticians from the University and Great West Life Assurance Company. In 1965, utilizing the data entered by keypunch into the IBM 360 computer at Great West Life, a detailed comparison of mortality and the incidence of heart disease was reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. As well, the risk factors of blood pressure, body build and certain electrocardiographic abnormalities were analyzed.

By 1970, twenty years of data had been accumulated so that papers on natural history were possible. As well, the ease of storing and analysing data on the computer had been established. Over twenty papers were published by Dr. Rabkin and others investigating such items as blood pressure, body weight, and electrocardiographic abnormalities as they related to subsequent development of ischemic heart disease and/or mortality due to heart disease.

A specific paper at that time documented the increased likelihood of death occurring suddenly on Monday morning. Although a two page report, it was picked up by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and as well the National Enquirer!

The papers from the 1980s and 1990s have taken advantage of the longer term accumulation of the data, so that events which were uncommon over the short term could be documented over the long term. These include such things as the occurrence of rhythm disturbances such as atrial fibrillation, or the long term significance of blood pressure elevations documented at a young age (for example).

We now have over fifty years of follow-up data, and Bob Tate, now Dr. Bob Tate has completed a Ph.D. thesis based on time and age relationships of blood pressure and other known risk factors for cardiovascular disease in this population. The Hoffman La Roche Ltd. award for excellence in population health research was presented to Dr. Tate in the spring of 2000 based on his excellent thesis.

His work has shown that such factors as smoking and high blood pressure are extremely important in the young and middle-aged men, but lose their significance later. Obesity and diabetes continue to be important over time. We have also confirmed that there is no cut off between normal and high blood pressure. The lower the blood pressure the better the outcome; the higher the blood pressure the more one is at risk for subsequent heart attack.

We have also followed the natural history of rhythm disturbances such as atrial fibrillation. This analysis has shown that there is a lower risk of stroke if there is only occasional occurrence of atrial fibrillation, compared to a higher risk if the arrhythmia is persistent.

More recently we have concerned ourselves with the problems of the elderly through the use of detailed questionnaires. We hope to examine the factors that result in successful versus not so successful aging. Some of this data has been presented but much more remains to be analysed.