Natural rate of death due to disease/illness?

[lilrayray69]

Ever since I had cancer last year I have wondered about the natural rate of death among humans due to disease and illness. Because we are now able to successfully treat a lot of diseases including cancer in some cases the survival rate is obviously much higher than it used to be...So I'm wondering approximately what percentage of the population in "natural conditions" is typically killed off by diseases and illness.

It's just a curiosity I have often had since having cancer as if modern treatments did not exist I would most likely be dead by now. I tried to find the answer to this via google and things but could not really find anything similar to what I'm thinking about, possibly due to not knowing exactly how to phrase it though.

Thanks!

 

[origin]

I think this is what you want.

Casues of death.

 

[anntay]

A new report finds that the rate of people dying of cancer in the U.S. is continuing its downward trend. Some say the result is a payoff for the country's investment into medical science. Others stay skeptical.

 

[leopold]

...So I'm wondering approximately what percentage of the population in "natural conditions" is typically killed off by diseases and illness.

although it doesn't answer your question it might give you something to go on.
http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks/worldclock/
clicking on the categories on the left (population, illness, etc) will give you those stats.

 

[spidergoat]

In natural conditions, I would imagine very few people die of old age, so I'm guessing about 80 or 90%?

 

[exchemist]

In natural conditions, I would imagine very few people die of old age, so I'm guessing about 80 or 90%?

How do you distinguish between death from "old age" and death from illness or disease?

I'd have thought virtually all very old people die of some condition that modern medicine would classify as illness or disease.

Is there really such a cause of death as mere old age?

 

[exchemist]

A new report finds that the rate of people dying of cancer in the U.S. is continuing its downward trend. Some say the result is a payoff for the country's investment into medical science. Others stay skeptical.

If death from cancer is going down, death from other causes must be going up. Do you now what causes of death are rising in the US?

 

[cornel]

in natural conditions about 99.9% of the population is killed by disease/illness, since if they get older they will be less equiped to deal with disease and easier develop illnesses.
The other 0.1% dies by unnatural causes, aka hit by a car.

People don't "die of old age" btw, there is always a certain cause of death, it's just that treating someone who is realy old is less and less usefull.

You might want to google the plague btw, it killed off something like 2/3rd of europe in a few years.

If you still haven't gotten the answer you were looking for(yes it was a bit vague phrased) i suggest to type out which people would fall under that statistic, and which people won't.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

How do you distinguish between death from "old age" and death from illness or disease?

You don't. Everybody dies from a cause. The bodies of older people are weaker than younger people--less able to fight off infection, bones break more easily and heal more slowly, the heart and other organs become weaker and prone to failure. So older people are more likely to die of "natural causes" than younger people who spend more time in cars and other activities with a much higher risk of traumatic injury.

I'd have thought virtually all very old people die of some condition that modern medicine would classify as illness or disease.

We do.

Is there really such a cause of death as mere old age?

No. Everybody dies from something. Some people squeak through for a while on luck, but only a handful make it past 120 years. It's been hypothesized that the human body cannot be made to survive beyond 140 years, no matter how good we get with modern medicine.

This is not caused by "old age," but rather by a specific condition.

 

[gmilam]

If death from cancer is going down, death from other causes must be going up. Do you now what causes of death are rising in the US?

Old age?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

If death from cancer is going down, death from other causes must be going up. Do you now what causes of death are rising in the US?

Astonishingly, deaths from road accidents have been declining for decades despite the increased number of vehicles, making collisions more likely, and the increased number of miles everyone drives, increasing our exposure. Starting with rear-view mirrors, safety glass, then seat belts, shoulder belts, ABS, also limited access highways with no cross traffic, "Botts' dots" to remind drivers to stay in their lanes. All of these things have made driving incredibly safer than it was when I learned to drive in the 1950s.

Nonetheless, road accidents are one of the top four causes of death for teenagers, a list that also includes homicide, suicide and overdosing on prescription medications.

Everyone's probability of dying in any given year is falling, precisely because the risks are abating. This is exactly why the average age of death has risen into the high 70s, when people are more likely to die from illness than trauma or violence.

The only major cause of death that is increasing is gun violence. 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year; in 2012, for the first time ever, Americans with guns killed more Americans than road accidents! For the average American, there is a one percent probability that the cause of your death will be a gunshot.

To answer your question, I suppose we could say that health-related causes of death are rising, including heart attack, stroke and Alzheimers. Although heart attack and stroke are less likely than they used to be, on a year-by-year basis, because we've all become more savvy about health risks and because we're doing a better job of saving people who are stricken by them, more people are surviving youth and middle age and living long enough to contract these diseases.

In other words, the only reason more people are dying of these causes is that they have survived longer than their parents and grandparents, who were killed by accidents and now-incurable diseases at a much younger age. They didn't live long enough to get Alzheimer's!

 

[exchemist]

Astonishingly, deaths from road accidents have been declining for decades despite the increased number of vehicles, making collisions more likely, and the increased number of miles everyone drives, increasing our exposure. Starting with rear-view mirrors, safety glass, then seat belts, shoulder belts, ABS, also limited access highways with no cross traffic, "Botts' dots" to remind drivers to stay in their lanes. All of these things have made driving incredibly safer than it was when I learned to drive in the 1950s.

Nonetheless, road accidents are one of the top four causes of death for teenagers, a list that also includes homicide, suicide and overdosing on prescription medications.

Everyone's probability of dying in any given year is falling, precisely because the risks are abating. This is exactly why the average age of death has risen into the high 70s, when people are more likely to die from illness than trauma or violence.

The only major cause of death that is increasing is gun violence. 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year; in 2012, for the first time ever, Americans with guns killed more Americans than road accidents! For the average American, there is a one percent probability that the cause of your death will be a gunshot.

To answer your question, I suppose we could say that health-related causes of death are rising, including heart attack, stroke and Alzheimers. Although heart attack and stroke are less likely than they used to be, on a year-by-year basis, because we've all become more savvy about health risks and because we're doing a better job of saving people who are stricken by them, more people are surviving youth and middle age and living long enough to contract these diseases.

In other words, the only reason more people are dying of these causes is that they have survived longer than their parents and grandparents, who were killed by accidents and now-incurable diseases at a much younger age. They didn't live long enough to get Alzheimer's!

Indeed, you draw attention to the importance, in discussions of this kind, of distinguishing between the % of people that die from any one cause and the annual death rate from that cause. The percentages of all causes of death must add to 100% of course, so from this perspective any reduction in a given cause of death is just balloon squeezing.

But the annual death rate from any one cause can go down without pushing up the others, if people are living longer - which in most countries they are. I presume this is what anntay meant, in the post I was responding to.

Re road accidents, yes, motoring in the UK is far safer today than it was when we were kids: a combination of far better car design, seatbelt laws, and better discipline on the part of road users. (A lot of the occasional really terrible driving one sometimes sees in London seems to be due to recently arrived immigrants - standards are far from uniform across the world.)

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

A lot of the occasional really terrible driving one sometimes sees in London seems to be due to recently arrived immigrants - standards are far from uniform across the world.

Actually what varies markedly from one country to the next is the availability and affordability of eye care. Consider how many people you know who wear corrective lenses. Then imagine living in a country where that percentage of the population need them but can't afford them (or simply have no access to an optometrist) but drive anyway!

A couple of years ago a scientist invented a new kind of glasses that have oil-filled lenses and a couple of adjusting knobs, with a set of instructions. (Obviously the patient will require the collaboration of someone with decent eyesight.) Ya keep tweakin' the knobs to change the shape of the lenses, and givin' yerself an eye test, until suddenly everything's in focus.

At that time they could be marketed for $10 a pair; I would imagine mass production would bring that down. Somebody like Bill Gates could spend 5% of his annual charity budget to deliver a pair to every citizen of the Third World who needs them. And bingo, the average life expectancy in that country would increase by ten or twenty years.

So when they arrive in your country they'll be able to see the other cars and read the signs. More importantly, they'll be more productive in their own countries, so the economy will improve and fewer of them will feel the need to emigrate.