U.S. death rates hit an all-time low in 2004 and life expectancy peaked, thanks in part to a decline in smoking, Bloomberg News reported April 19.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. death rate fell 3.8 percent in 2004, to 801 per 100,000 population, while life expectancy at birth rose from 77.5 years to 77.9 years.

No reasons for the trends were cited by the agency. But declines in death from heart disease fell 6.4 percent, which could be related to smoking cessation, weight loss, or blood-pressure control. "The decline reflects a combination of treating people better and preventing the disease from happening in the first place," said epidemiologist Wayne Rosamond of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Rosamond cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from year-to-year statistics, however. Heart-disease rates have been falling since 1968, he noted.