I agree with your preventative steps because they are basically common sense to a large extent but it's not clear how many of them are more directed towards a better quality of life rather than an extended life, not that its not a good idea to do that. There is also often a genetic component to most of the top killers such as heart disease, dementia, and cancer. The genetic predisposition might interact with environmental and lifestyle things you can control but the exact amount is not really well known. There isn't a great formula for "if you do x then you won't get y" though the insane amount of articles that come out offering solutions tends to cloud the picture. In any case the longer you live the more likely you are to eventually succumb to one of the top 3 or 4 on the list. You just want a good run before that happens.
I'm not sure how much preventative work you can do to prevent dementia. It seems like the steps to remain social with friends will help your quality of life but not prevent dementia.
The charts didn't really show how some of the top causes might be tied to obesity so that would be an interesting breakdown if it was available. Of course getting a really strong correlation between obesity and death causes is a bit tricky, especially for things like cancer as opposed to heart disease where you can directly observe contributing factors. I expect that at least in the US that obesity has played a role.
Mark, I appreciate your thoughtful and detailed comment. I think it's worth noting that for most people dealing with heart disease, cancer or dementia, genetics is only one factor among many. Environmental, lifestyle and random factors often play larger roles than inherited genetics. The "genetic component" typically means increased susceptibility rather than genetic determination. For instance, most cancers result from acquired mutations during a person's lifetime rather than inherited ones, and genetic predisposition for cancer I think accounts for only about 10% of all cancers.
Dementia genetics vs environmental factors is, of course, a complex and layered discussion, around which exercise, nutrition and numerous other lifestyle factors often play major roles.
Good article - one critique is that it underweights culture and overweights policy as contributing factors.
A sentence like the follow g attributes the entirety of the difference to government action. If you think about different communities within a polity (operating under the same policy regimes), you can find vastly different health outcomes. Policy is just one part of the puzzle (and is also mostly downstream of culture)
“External causes are significantly lower. Australia's lower rate (8.5%) compared to the U.S. (11.9%) likely reflects stronger safety regulations, gun restrictions, workplace safety standards and injury prevention programs.”
Tyler, thanks for making this point. I agree that policy is the product of culture. I didn't mean, in that sentence you quoted, to suggest that Australia's lower rate is because of government action/regulation. The regulations exist because the culture deems them valuable, as you note implies. The aren't really that separable in a decent democracy.
Interesting to think about. If you wish to analyse this I suggest going through IHME data. Its summarized in lancet capstone papers and available at ghdx. (Btw higher blood pressure in Europe play a big role for cvd)
Leo, thank you for those suggestions. I agree the data could certainly use further analysis. I think I'm still a little traumatized from the amount of work required to accurately direct AI to the correct raw data and then weed out it's tendency to make assumptions. That said, I believe these charts are accurate, and it would be terrific if someone uses them to dig further.
Paul, as an Australian who has decoded prostate cancer and now decoding severe heart disease at 58, I can raise my hand as a living testimony to those statistics even though I said 'living'. I'll also say I'm aging with strength because I'm decoding my diagnoses by aligning mind, body and soul transitioning to meaningful old age as my focus, rather than modern day survival.
I may be misreading your charts, but American and European death from dementia rates look identical to me (where comparable), at 4.9% for those 65+. I did not assume the US chart was 65-85; and there's not a European chart for 85+.
Melissa, Thanks for drawing attention to this. The chart for United States mortality shows Alzheimer's disease specifically, whereas the European chart shows dementia, Which is a broader category that comprises Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. So the two are not exactly comparable but you are certainly correct that the 4.9% in each of those categories for each of those charts is the same. Also confounding a direct comparison are the mismatched age groups between the United States and Europe, as you alluded to. When I first read your note I assumed I had made a mistake in my analysis that you were correcting. I didn't immediately find an error, but please let me know if I'm missing it. Thanks so much for your close read of the data.
Hi Paul -- I was responding to this statement: "Europe lacks the dramatic Alzheimer's emergence — Only 4.9% for people 65 years or older vs 7.9% for Americans 85 years and older, either reflecting different diagnostic practices, reporting methods or actual disease patterns"
I now understand that the European category is larger, so presumably the rate of Alzheimer's after 65 is lower... But it also seems to me there is no evidence to assure that Europe's 85+ rates aren't equivalent to (or higher than) in the US. Comparing 65+ data (Europe) to 85+ data (US) seems to me to be a bit of a (albeit necessary) stretch that may not deserve the "dramatic" descriptor. At least, not until there's more comparable data.
Randy, thanks for calling that out. "Unintentional injuries" typically comprise car accidents (car crashes, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian fatalities, etc.), which are very typically the largest component of this category. So if younger people (25-44) die, it stands to reason that causes of death are more likely to be non-chronic, non-communicable, non-health related and more environmental or accidental in nature.
That said, "Unintentional injuries" also includes falls — particularly significant in older adults cohorts, but also includes falls from heights, down stairs, etc.; poisoning, including drug overdoses (both prescription and illicit drugs), carbon monoxide poisoning, and other toxic exposures; drowning; fires and burns; suffocation and choking; and other accidents like workplace injuries, sports-related deaths, firearm accidents, etc. So, certainly, drug-related deaths for the younger cohort would contribute to the outsized amount of "unintentional injuries," as well.
The "Other" category, which is indeed large, would likely encompass hundreds of different causes of death that individually don't rank in the top 10, such as infectious diseases, rare cancers, congenital conditions, complications from medical procedures, other types of accidents and injuries and numerous other medical conditions that cause death.
Thanks to you, I included a footnote about those, because they are so prevalent and not well explained in the charts. Thanks again for calling this out.
Thanks very much for this. I appreciate the insight that calling attention to risks can lead to risk reduction behavior. It most often does not, but when it does it’s a really big deal in the lives of those who change behaviors.
Charles, I appreciate your note. Thank you for reading. I'm glad you found this enlightning and/or helpful. I'm curious, why do you say calling attention to risks most often doesn't change behavior? I'm not challenging your assertion, just genuinely curious about what the science or the facts say. I would think that ideas or facts that capture one's attention somehow begin to influence one's behavior. But perhaps the trick is that one's attention has to be captured, which isn't easy.
Hi Paul - I think it is the minority of people who actually change behavior based on information. In my experience it usually takes more than that for damaging behavior to be overcome. Especially if the damage is not yet causing problems. I can speak both from personal experience and form observing others. I have persisted in damaging behavior long after I knew it was damaging. But I was a lot younger then😀
I suppose it's true that most humans are more likely to continue unhealthy behaviors — whether due to habit, self-comfort of social approval seeking — until they begin to cause obvious problems. But I still believe that when people let an idea sit in their minds (e.g., the 5 things that are statistically most likely to kill them), it serves as a spark that can ignite a future conversation or extra attention to a related item in the news, and eventually leverage a behavioral change.
Sorry, Paul. I didn’t mean to suggest that there’s no point in writing about the risks. Of course there is and I think your article does a great service to your readers, myself included. Thanks very much for writing!
Charles, no apologies needed, please. I completely understand and agree with you. Just philosophizing into the weeds, as is my habit. And, also, see? We've started a conversation on the internet about thinking about how to leave this world on our own terms. It's working!
Interesting article. Thank you. One of my big takeaways is that as an American over 45, there’s not much chance I’ll be murdered. I like that.
David, it certainly helps to be an optimist....
Yikes, I think I'll console myself with some dark chocolate (epicatechin for the win!).
Utterly reasonable.
I agree with your preventative steps because they are basically common sense to a large extent but it's not clear how many of them are more directed towards a better quality of life rather than an extended life, not that its not a good idea to do that. There is also often a genetic component to most of the top killers such as heart disease, dementia, and cancer. The genetic predisposition might interact with environmental and lifestyle things you can control but the exact amount is not really well known. There isn't a great formula for "if you do x then you won't get y" though the insane amount of articles that come out offering solutions tends to cloud the picture. In any case the longer you live the more likely you are to eventually succumb to one of the top 3 or 4 on the list. You just want a good run before that happens.
I'm not sure how much preventative work you can do to prevent dementia. It seems like the steps to remain social with friends will help your quality of life but not prevent dementia.
The charts didn't really show how some of the top causes might be tied to obesity so that would be an interesting breakdown if it was available. Of course getting a really strong correlation between obesity and death causes is a bit tricky, especially for things like cancer as opposed to heart disease where you can directly observe contributing factors. I expect that at least in the US that obesity has played a role.
Mark, I appreciate your thoughtful and detailed comment. I think it's worth noting that for most people dealing with heart disease, cancer or dementia, genetics is only one factor among many. Environmental, lifestyle and random factors often play larger roles than inherited genetics. The "genetic component" typically means increased susceptibility rather than genetic determination. For instance, most cancers result from acquired mutations during a person's lifetime rather than inherited ones, and genetic predisposition for cancer I think accounts for only about 10% of all cancers.
Dementia genetics vs environmental factors is, of course, a complex and layered discussion, around which exercise, nutrition and numerous other lifestyle factors often play major roles.
Good article - one critique is that it underweights culture and overweights policy as contributing factors.
A sentence like the follow g attributes the entirety of the difference to government action. If you think about different communities within a polity (operating under the same policy regimes), you can find vastly different health outcomes. Policy is just one part of the puzzle (and is also mostly downstream of culture)
“External causes are significantly lower. Australia's lower rate (8.5%) compared to the U.S. (11.9%) likely reflects stronger safety regulations, gun restrictions, workplace safety standards and injury prevention programs.”
Tyler, thanks for making this point. I agree that policy is the product of culture. I didn't mean, in that sentence you quoted, to suggest that Australia's lower rate is because of government action/regulation. The regulations exist because the culture deems them valuable, as you note implies. The aren't really that separable in a decent democracy.
What an eye opener? Must read for everybody who wants to live longer with minimum suffering
Thank you for reading and I'm glad you found it useful. Please pass it along to those who it could also benefit!
Interesting to think about. If you wish to analyse this I suggest going through IHME data. Its summarized in lancet capstone papers and available at ghdx. (Btw higher blood pressure in Europe play a big role for cvd)
Leo, thank you for those suggestions. I agree the data could certainly use further analysis. I think I'm still a little traumatized from the amount of work required to accurately direct AI to the correct raw data and then weed out it's tendency to make assumptions. That said, I believe these charts are accurate, and it would be terrific if someone uses them to dig further.
Paul, as an Australian who has decoded prostate cancer and now decoding severe heart disease at 58, I can raise my hand as a living testimony to those statistics even though I said 'living'. I'll also say I'm aging with strength because I'm decoding my diagnoses by aligning mind, body and soul transitioning to meaningful old age as my focus, rather than modern day survival.
Paul, thanks for your note. Sounds like you've been through a lot. Keep decoding, and aging with strength.
Thanks Paul, I'll never stop until I become an 'all cause mortality' statistic or die of old age. If I have anything to do with it it'll be the later.
I may be misreading your charts, but American and European death from dementia rates look identical to me (where comparable), at 4.9% for those 65+. I did not assume the US chart was 65-85; and there's not a European chart for 85+.
Melissa, Thanks for drawing attention to this. The chart for United States mortality shows Alzheimer's disease specifically, whereas the European chart shows dementia, Which is a broader category that comprises Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. So the two are not exactly comparable but you are certainly correct that the 4.9% in each of those categories for each of those charts is the same. Also confounding a direct comparison are the mismatched age groups between the United States and Europe, as you alluded to. When I first read your note I assumed I had made a mistake in my analysis that you were correcting. I didn't immediately find an error, but please let me know if I'm missing it. Thanks so much for your close read of the data.
Hi Paul -- I was responding to this statement: "Europe lacks the dramatic Alzheimer's emergence — Only 4.9% for people 65 years or older vs 7.9% for Americans 85 years and older, either reflecting different diagnostic practices, reporting methods or actual disease patterns"
I now understand that the European category is larger, so presumably the rate of Alzheimer's after 65 is lower... But it also seems to me there is no evidence to assure that Europe's 85+ rates aren't equivalent to (or higher than) in the US. Comparing 65+ data (Europe) to 85+ data (US) seems to me to be a bit of a (albeit necessary) stretch that may not deserve the "dramatic" descriptor. At least, not until there's more comparable data.
More than 50% of the US 25-44 cohort is due to “unintentional injuries” and “other”? That’s pretty vague attribution…
Randy, thanks for calling that out. "Unintentional injuries" typically comprise car accidents (car crashes, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian fatalities, etc.), which are very typically the largest component of this category. So if younger people (25-44) die, it stands to reason that causes of death are more likely to be non-chronic, non-communicable, non-health related and more environmental or accidental in nature.
That said, "Unintentional injuries" also includes falls — particularly significant in older adults cohorts, but also includes falls from heights, down stairs, etc.; poisoning, including drug overdoses (both prescription and illicit drugs), carbon monoxide poisoning, and other toxic exposures; drowning; fires and burns; suffocation and choking; and other accidents like workplace injuries, sports-related deaths, firearm accidents, etc. So, certainly, drug-related deaths for the younger cohort would contribute to the outsized amount of "unintentional injuries," as well.
The "Other" category, which is indeed large, would likely encompass hundreds of different causes of death that individually don't rank in the top 10, such as infectious diseases, rare cancers, congenital conditions, complications from medical procedures, other types of accidents and injuries and numerous other medical conditions that cause death.
Thanks to you, I included a footnote about those, because they are so prevalent and not well explained in the charts. Thanks again for calling this out.
Thanks very much for this. I appreciate the insight that calling attention to risks can lead to risk reduction behavior. It most often does not, but when it does it’s a really big deal in the lives of those who change behaviors.
Charles, I appreciate your note. Thank you for reading. I'm glad you found this enlightning and/or helpful. I'm curious, why do you say calling attention to risks most often doesn't change behavior? I'm not challenging your assertion, just genuinely curious about what the science or the facts say. I would think that ideas or facts that capture one's attention somehow begin to influence one's behavior. But perhaps the trick is that one's attention has to be captured, which isn't easy.
Hi Paul - I think it is the minority of people who actually change behavior based on information. In my experience it usually takes more than that for damaging behavior to be overcome. Especially if the damage is not yet causing problems. I can speak both from personal experience and form observing others. I have persisted in damaging behavior long after I knew it was damaging. But I was a lot younger then😀
I suppose it's true that most humans are more likely to continue unhealthy behaviors — whether due to habit, self-comfort of social approval seeking — until they begin to cause obvious problems. But I still believe that when people let an idea sit in their minds (e.g., the 5 things that are statistically most likely to kill them), it serves as a spark that can ignite a future conversation or extra attention to a related item in the news, and eventually leverage a behavioral change.
Or, none of that and I'm just a naive journalist.
Sorry, Paul. I didn’t mean to suggest that there’s no point in writing about the risks. Of course there is and I think your article does a great service to your readers, myself included. Thanks very much for writing!
Charles, no apologies needed, please. I completely understand and agree with you. Just philosophizing into the weeds, as is my habit. And, also, see? We've started a conversation on the internet about thinking about how to leave this world on our own terms. It's working!