People dying in their fifties and sixties?

[antelopevalley]

I know the stats around life expectancy, but I am finding it mentally hard that so many people I know have died in their fifties and sixties. A few were expected e.g. colleague who was a functional alcoholic, but so many were not expected. A marathon runner who was very fit. A slim and active woman who died of cancer. Another woman who was sporty who died of a rare lung infection. etc etc.

I really do not expect this as I got older. It makes me afraid and makes me worry my partner could die at any time.

@blackheartsgirl I am so sorry to hear that. That must be very hard.

I am surprised to hear the average age to retire is 62 either because of ill health or wealth. Both DP and I plan to work until 67 when we get our state pension.

It's because these people in their 50s and 60s are your contemporaries, so you hear about them on the gossip grapevine, and pay more attention because they are your age group.

When you were in your 20s/30s say, you wouldn't have heard about the 50/60 year olds dying, because they weren't in your circle. And if you had heard, it wouldn't have caught your attention much, because they were so much older than you.

My own dad died completely unexpectedly at 62, yet his own parents lived well into their 80s, and all the grandparents lived well into their 90s!

Agree if you can get through your 50's things seem to improve. Working in a hospital I have always thought the 50's are a scary age.

My DF died at 54 of heart failure having had TB as a child.
My DM was killed at 69 in a car accident.
I've just turned 50, healthy living and diagnosed with three (non-life limiting hopefully) health conditions out the blue in the last six months. Reaffirming my plan to retire at 55 and enjoy myself.
Over thirty years of nursing and my own experiences have taught me to count on nothing.

That is a very good point @zingally .
By the time you get to your 50's etc you hear about others your age dying and because you are older your contemporaries also have children and maybe grandchildren who may also become seriously unwell/die so you're hearing about then as well. You get a double whammy of death/illness news that you didn't when you were younger.

What worries me is the government keep upping the retirement age. I don't want to work until I literally drop, but if they keep raising it, it will be likely. Currently I have to work until I'm 67 and it's very unlikely I'll be able to afford to retire early.

Mind you, with the way the cost of living is shooting up, I wouldn't be able to survive on a pension anyway!

I totally agree with the op. I am actually really scared by this and sometimes want to cry.

Cancer is a bitch. I had a shock diagnosis of a rare cancer at 55, a year of treatment and three years later I am cancer free but I know it will get me in the end, am just hoping I will be at the happier end of the statistics.

50s and 60s? In the last 3 years I’ve watched a friend diagnosed with throat cancer at 48 died at 50, another friend dead at 38 from bowel cancer that spread and the sister of a friend die of breast cancer at 48. It terrifies me that life can be cut short so quickly and the 38 year old was very healthy and fit.

Hopefully not. I think that after you've been cancer free for a certain period of time, you're no more likely to get it than anyone else. My mum has been cancer free for 20 years.

I have lost most of my extended family, some friends that have died in 30/40/50’s mainly to cancer, one sadly to MND. One of the reasons I embraced my 50th birthday, I haven’t been truly unscathed due to being dx with MS at 40, but I just thought I was very lucky to get to be 50 tbh.

I lost my DN who was 8 to cancer, and my parents are in their 80's and still going strong despite having their illnesses.
Life really is a lottery I think

I consider myself very lucky to have felt unwell one day and DP carted me off to the hospital immediately. I thought it was flu/covid and was having none of it, the usual.... I'll be fine stop fussing!

However - turns out I had atrial fibrillation (an electrical firing system problem with the heart), for which I had no symptoms apart from that day when I was weak and breathless, it was in the middle of Covid so I thought it was that.

Afib won't kill you but it increases risk of stroke by a huge percentage if you don't take blood thinning meds. All good now but I could have had a devastating stroke with no other known risk factors. I was 63 at the time and just out of Sniper Alley!

So I can safely say that it is not always lifestyle that gets you. I was tested for every goddam thing whilst in the hospital and the only other thing they found were polyps on colon which were removed and tested. All good. I was sailing along thinking there wasn't a thing wrong with me, but there was, however I was diagnosed in time and stroke risk is now much reduced thankfully. Made me think of all the young people who get brain injuries from stroke and many have undiagnosed Afib. Just another thing that can lurk without detection. Great thread, and food for thought.

Maybe it has something to do with hormonal changes in your 50s

My father died at 54. He was a smoker. People in their 50s and 60s now probaly had very unhealthy 20s and 30s still - smoking, poor diet,, lack of excercise. That. along with unfortunate genetics, shortens the average human's lifespan. There's no two ways about it and no way to sugar coat it. Probably not much consolation to peopel who are that age now and weren't that health concious when younger (who was? I wasn't).

However it will change i think. I look at my teenagers and collegues in their twenties and tehy're way healthier than us. They go to the gym, they play sports, they run marathons. Many are vegan. They don't all smoke. There will always be exceptions and people who are unlucky but generally I think younger people are more aware now than they were and hopefully that will result in less early deaths.

Also hopefully better more tailoired cancer treatments coming in will help? Tailored immunotherapy etc.

This is why it can be frustrating when a lot of MNetters say they're fat and healthy.

That might well be true but I doubt they're thinking about the strain they're putting on their joints.

Working into their 60s will be a hell of a lot harder if they're joints are starting to pack up in their 50s.

It is worrying but life is too short to be overthinking things like this. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow. A lad that went to the same school as my son just collapsed and died last week. He was 28 he's a few years older than my son but it's a special needs school with 50-60 pupils. So they all know each other right from the little ones to the 16-19 year olds. They still like to meet up after they have left. Some of the children do have life limiting conditions. But he never that we know of.

It's really sad one of the girls he was at school with her mum has organised a party for her 30th this weekend. She was thinking of cancelling it. But the lads parents said not to that's not what he would want.

It’s the age people start dying. One of my best friends died of cancer a couple of years ago. I know 3 women whose husbands have died of cancer. All early 50s.

@TeapotTitties I am part of a study about joints and aches and pains. I am fat but do not get any of the ageing aches and pains my friends who are slim and the same age often complain about. Weight is an important part of the picture, but not the only one. My mum was crippled wit arthritis caused by the many severe sports injuries she sustained.

Bear in mind that this stat will only be measured by looking at people who have already retired (because how else would you calculate it?)

A large proportion of women who are currently retired will have had a state retirement age of 60, and the men will have has a state retirement age of 65.

What worries me is the government keep upping the retirement age. I don't want to work until I literally drop, but if they keep raising it, it will be likely. Currently I have to work until I'm 67 and it's very unlikely I'll be able to afford to retire early.

I may be misremembering this, but I seem to recall that the pension age was originally deliberately set at an age above men's average life expectancy, with the express thinking that not many people would ever live to receive it.

I don't know if it was supposed to be some kind of reward for being lucky enough to live longer; or if it was a deliberate/semi-conscious othering of working-class people, intended so that the 'nice, decent' middle-class people in much less physically-demanding jobs would get their 'reward', as they would probably live longer, whereas the poorer folk who would likely die earlier after decades doing back-breaking work in heavily-polluted environments would just.... well, erm, we can't afford to pay everybody to sit in their gardens drinking tea in their later years only ourselves and our peers.

I know you can't really do much apart from going on averages, but the state pension is grossly unfair inasmuch as those lucky enough to have a longer life get the double bunce of money from the government, whereas those who die younger get neither. Maybe they could hone in on those averages more, based on your background and how manual your occupation is - but that would put the people who make the rules right at the back of the queue, so don't hold your breath.

It's always sad when someone dies but they lived 80 years. I had a cousin who died at 13. Sometimes life is just shit. If there was a god no children would die.

I’m in my 30’s. My parents are in their 50’s and 60’s. They don’t seem old to me, if they died today I would be blind sided by it.

It’s just not old, not at all.

Whilst I know what you mean, OP, sometimes I find it useful to see the averages mapped out. It reinforces that death in your 50s is not the norm and that most deaths occur in the mid 80s.