BEIJING, July 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Elderly people with weaker skills to read and understand basic medical information have a greater chance of dying compared with those with adequate medical literacy, according to a U.S. study released on Monday.

    The study, published in the U.S. Archives of Internal Medicine, is led by Dr. David Baker and his colleagues from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, investigating 3,260 patients over 65.

    It finds that 39.4 percent of the 815 subjects who died after six years the research began were with inadequate medical literacy, 28.7 percent with marginal medical literacy, and 18.9 percent with adequate medical literacy.

    The results show that elderly people with low literacy levels had more than 50 percent higher mortality rate compared to those with better literacy skills.

    "The excess number of deaths among people with low literacy was huge. The magnitude of this shocked us," said Baker.

    "Inadequate health literacy is associated with less knowledge of chronic disease and worse self-management skills for patients with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, asthma and heart failure," Baker said.

    He suggested that more plain language is needed，for example, saying "sugar" instead of "glucose" when discussing diabetes.

    "When patients can't read, they are not able to do the things necessary to stay healthy. They don't know how to take their medications correctly, they don't understand when to seek medical care, and they don't know how to care for their diseases," Baker added.

    (Agencies)