The Solar Alpha Particles Invading Earth and Ischemic Heart Diseases – the World Wide Killer Number One, connected?

Introduction. Charged solar particles - protons and alpha particles, with different kinetic energies are constantly reaching the Earth's orbit [1]. The kinetic energy of most of them is insufficient to penetrate deep into the Earths atmosphere. As a result of explosive processes on the solar surface, streams of high-energy particles– with the energy of the order of several MeV to several GeV, sometimes reach the Earths orbit.
A worrying fact is a high correlation observed between high-energy charged particle fluxes and mortality from several types of coronary (ischemic) heart diseases, which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, is the first in the list of the 10 most common causes of death in 2016, regardless of the states economic  situation [2].
Objective. The following are examples of high correlations between annual mortality from ischemic heart diseases and the intensity of the average annual flow of positively charged high-energy particles, mainly alpha particles, reaching Earth's orbit. The examples are from different points on the Earths surface (from the Northern Hemisphere). A possible mechanism of the observed phenomenon is discussed. An example of the short-term
impact of high-energy alpha fluxes on the area around Los Angeles, affecting the short-term female mortality in the region, is explained by the proposed mechanism.
Material and Methods: Data on solar corpuscular radiation was obtained from an NOAA site – from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite series (GOES) [1]. High-energy protons and alpha particles’ path length through the atmosphere and corresponding energy were calculated by PSTAR and ASTAR databases and calculators [3, 4]. Data on the geomagnetic field for Bulgaria was obtained from the website of Intermagnet
[5]. Data on galactic cosmic rays were obtained from the NMDB database for 5 European neutron monitors [6, 7]. Data on Sun Spot Number [8], Solar Flare Index [9,10], Coronal Mass Ejections [11], and Coronal Holes [12], were used too.
Data for mortality of ischemic heart diseases in the interval 1999 – 2019 from reliable statistical sources – WHO [2], Eurostat [13], UN data [14], Centers for Disease Control and Prevention USA [15], Our World in Data [16], Number of Deaths by Cause, by Sex, and by Usual Residence of Deceased (Region and Province), Philippines [17] were used.
Correlation and regression analysis were used to process the data.
Results: Between the annual fluxes of protons and alpha particles on the one side and the male and the annual female ischemic diseases mortality in several countries in Europe (Figure 1), North America (Figure 2), Africa (Figure 3), and Asia (Figure 4), on the other side, a high statistically significant correlation was found.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.