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.

My mother, in a very old school, blunt, and pragmatic way, used to always say, ‘If you can get through your 50s, you’ll live to 90.’
It’s a flawed theory but shit… she’s not too far off!

The British Dental Association say 1000s of EU Dentists have had to go back to Europe because of the issue of recognising qualifications, post brexit... madness, as they were working here just fine before..

Cornwall has no NHS dentists and the private dentist i was using, which was run by some great Polish dentists shut down in 2021.

Dentists always do oral cancer checks, these aren't being done now for millions of people.

Two men I've known for decades, used to socialise with a lot, died over the last 18 months.

Both 66, really frightening, I'm 68 next week so hope I've got a few more years in me.😱

I'll likely die around that age because of multiple conditions. Type 1 diabetes alone can knock 20 years off, and I have other conditions too.

Having a shorter life expectancy has definitely shaped the way I approach life, which is to do the things I enjoy as much as possible. Old age isn't fun for a lot of people.

I also think that if you get through your 50s without suffering poor health/mobility issues, you'll usually survive in pretty good health with decent quality of life until your 90s (maybe late 80s).

It is sobering to think of it. Too common to hear of illness and death. Many of these were active and healthy people.

My father had a knee replacement in his 50s (a few years ago) and I thought that was far too young, but that may not be the case.

Definitely this.
So many people who are fit and well at 40 starting a family. At best you will be in your 60s when they are at uni but your health can go downhill unexpectedly as mine did at 58.
I was 40 and DH 49 when DC2 was born. We are now 64 and 73. The DC had no grandparents from an early age. We as parents are as old as some of their friends grandparents.

Family history and genes are beyond your control but I think there are a few very big fundemental things you can do in your teens and 20s that will make a difference, stay slim and stay fit and active. But living a miserable life of strict regime isn't necessary.

Very true. Always see far more 50 year olds in the CT scanner than any other age .....

I feel like I’m starting to see this with friends hitting their 40s although so far touch wood illness rather than death. One of my good friends has two under 5 and has just been diagnosed with cancer and it is especially upsetting given the age of the children. It makes you think about your own mortality a bit more.

All these 'unexplained sudden no reason for it' deaths.

Nothing at all to do with the covid vaccine.

Move along people. Nothing to see.

For the last 30 years of their lives my DPs ate M&S ready meals virtually every day, (including meat) had cream cakes at least three times a week, never did any exercise and lived to 86 & 87 My DM is the same, but add Special Brew with a packet of crisps as her daily lunch. She is 94.

I see quite a few elderly, fat people. Not that many oldies/fatties in the public eye but Miriam Margolyes (81) would be an example of one.

I look at the death of Dame Deborah James as just one example of an extremely health conscious young woman who was still killed by cancer.

I know... My grandparents are seemingly died one after the other in the matter of five short years.They were all in their late sixties one in her very early seventies. It was strangely eye opening. It felt like I was going to a funeral once a year at one point. It was awful. I had never known anyone personally who had died and it also freaked me out as I felt like I should have been sad and cried but I didn't and I just carried on with life. I mean I WAS sad but it was a very casual sad. I felt like an awful person because I felt like I should have been more upset.

All these 'unexplained sudden no reason for it' deaths.Nothing at all to do with the covid vaccine

Oh for goodness sake! There have always been deaths like this! Fit healthy people who have sudden heart attacks and whatever. This is nothing new.

What we hadn’t seen for a long time was the mass deaths of millions of people across the world from the very explainable death of a disease pandemic! This time covid!

Another thread by people incapable of understanding statistics.

I agree that genetics probably have something to do with it, although in my Dad's side of the family, one or two siblings in every generation seem to die on the earlier side and then the others go on into their 90's.

My apparently fit uncle suddenly died of a heart attack at 67, for example, but my Dad (85) and auntie (77) are still going - they have some ailments but are basically strong. It was the same with my Granny's generation.

I lost my Mum from a chronic condition in my 20's (she was in her 60's). I hope I be around for my children abit longer, at least into their 30's. After that, I'm happy to peg out before I get really elderly. 😂

My husband died in his late forties. You never think it will happen to you or your family. He was ill for several years beforehand, and it was like being a forebringer of Death everywhere we went, as I think before the age of about 45, people don't even think they will ever die and feel weirdly immortal (apart from perhaps a very unlucky school friend who might have passed away very early). It was horrible for us as a family, people always speak in hushed tones about you as you are a constant reminder of the fact we are all mortal! Now I'm in my fifties, it's becoming more common to hear of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes related illness. As my very old grandma said, there comes a time when you end up outliving most of your friends!

I don't feel stressed about dying young though, you just cannot know. It does affect the way I live though, and what I prioritise, I simply can't care about some things (mainly work) like I did before.

Jeeze this is a depressing thread.

I'm 60 next year. No current medical issues. I'm running like the clappers for the sniper alley exit!!

You are just wasting your energy worrying about things you can't control OP. My father died at 36 due to medication for rheumatoid arthritis. Several of my closest friends died in their 40s - one to cancer, one in a car crash and one to a cerebral aneurysm. My sister in law died aged 48 from a curable condition that the GP didn't spot over many visits.

My mother is 90, in terrible health and practically house bound. She wants to die! Ditto my MIL. You can live too long you know.

I went to the theatre yesterday with two women who could barely walk in their mid-60s with a number of preventable health problems. It scared the shit out of me. I need to take better care of myself.

This subject troubles me because, about ten years ago, I was struck by the number of people of my parent's generation who were suddenly dying in their 50s and 60s, despite seeming relatively healthy -- exercising, eating well, not alcoholics etc.

The weird thing was that most people I knew in my grandparents' generation were hitting 85 or more. My own grandmother is 96 this year. And it was on both sides of my family, so massively different ethnic origins and upbringing in other countries.

The poverty they'd grown up in was acute (my grandfather was starved and worked to exhaustion in a camp during WW2). There'd even been alcoholism in a few cases. I mean, my English family grew up and lived their lives in a mill town where you couldn't see the valley from the hillside because of the smoke. Yet they all lived into their 80s and beyond; I have great aunts and uncles that are still alive in their 90s, while my own mother has died.

It's also true of DH's family. The pre-45ers are all living a really long time, but those born after seem to be dying earlier.

I also live in an area where a nearby village has an unusual number of women in their 90s (again, my grandmother's generation).

It doesn't seem to make sense. So I started asking my grandma about her generation, and a lot of the earlier deaths among her peer group were either war deaths, or industrial accidents or work-related diseases (emphysema etc). She'd only known of two cancer deaths, both women, below 60 in her cohort.

It made me wonder whether there was something about postwar cultural and lifestyle changes that have shortened lifespan for the baby boomers, despite legislation removing many environmental and work-related hazards. Or whether there was something about the Silent/Greatest generation that expanded their lifespan.

I have wondered whether it is something dietary because, by conventional thinking, there's no other viable factors I can find.

I agree. I've just turned 40, my parents are in their 60s (although dad turns 70 the end of the year).

I've got no reason to think I could lose them soon, but the fact that my two closest friends have both lost their mothers in the last couple of years is quite frightening.

I know it's very selfish to think like that, but I genuinely find it really upsetting. I'm not ready to be entering the part of my life where my parents could die. Granted, I might never be there.

Weight is a massive part of the picture but I don't think people in their 30s often realise this, or if they do, they think it's a lifetime away. Ditto the strain it can put on the heart.

Also, weight is easier to lose before menopause and while your joints are still healthy enough to exercise.

How does that work then? You've just told us that you avoided death by making a good decision.

@Torunette I have noticed the same. But looking at the much older generation who lived through the first world war, many had siblings who died very young - as children usually. So I think if you survived into adulthood, you tended to be made of tough stuff. I think in our generation the people dying in their fifties and younger, would mainly have once died in childhood.

I know it is part of the issue. But losing weight is hard but manageable, keeping it off is very tough. I have to accept being hungry all the time and monitoring everything I eat and drink for ever more. I do manage it for some years then when life is tough it drops off.