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.

@Octomore i think it’s because you know it will drastically affect your children’s lives to lose a parent and probably not in a good way, IYSWIM.

Even losing my Mum in the 20’s wasn’t great so I’m motivated to stick around abit longer for my adult kids! 😂

One minute I'm worried about saying Tuna incorrectly and the next minute I'm worried about dying. I think I need to log off and stop worrying.

@BorisByCandlelight Have to no-one to talk to in real life?

Me too, just got another 6 months.... but will i make it? Is the grim reaper zeroing his sights on me as we speak....

Like a pp, I'm in my 50s with adult DC. I'd rather not die, but if I did they would be OK. We've talked about it and of course they'd be upset but they are on their path, reasonably settled etc. I was a single parent (with more or less no family) so I used to be terrified of me dying and them ending up in care. Once that time period passed I relaxed a bit.

I have a live for today approach. Virtually everything I wanted to do in life I've done. Yes I could do more but my big dreams have been fulfilled. I'll go with no regrets.

I am now ambivalent towards life and death. I smoke, I drink, I sometimes eat crap (not always). I'm not sure I want to be here for another 30 years. I don't have all that much to look forward to! I won't get into another relationship, I don't have a pension. Poverty and loneliness aren't that appealing. If I get past 71 both my DC will be in their 50s (I hope!) and I don't want to outlive either of them. So I guess somewhere between 65/70 is what I'm aiming for!

Thankfully my parents 80 and 75 are fit and healthy.

Went to the funeral of my school friend last week. Healthy woman, 52. Never smoked and drank moderately. Brain aneurysm. Tragic- RIP Carole

Had to say a final goodbye to my friend a few years ago. Steve. Too many of my friends have died in their 50s xx

Also, some cancers seem to rear their heads at this age, think prostate for men and breast cancer for women.
Biggest risk for breast cancer after being female is age. Any other risk factors are statistically tiny in comparison.

My 3 best friends died in their 40s and 50s, one after another. My sister and mum died in their mid 50s. My boss and 2 colleagues died in 40s/50s (all female). This was mostly from cancer, but 2 from sepsis and 2 from complications of MS. Thats only the ones I can think of, been few more not so close friends died before they reached 60, all female. I was 60 last month and I am very grateful for it. After my experiences I'm afraid I am always expecting the worst!

A few friends now have husbands with heart attacks and cancer, I think its the time of life for it. We need to accept that life is relatively short, I've been reading that book 4,000 weeks (says you get around 4,000 weeks if you are lucky!)

I often wonder about this too. Are we really living longer? Or is that a bit of a myth? My dad died at 64 of a heart attack, yet his dad lived to 77 and his grandad lived to nearly 90, so each generation died younger. I have been researching my family tree and was surprised to discover that some of my English and Scottish ancestors in the 1600s lived well into their 80s! Dr Johnson’s mother (1740s...ish) lived to 90 and Newton (1700s) was in his late 80s.

Of course, luck plays a part. But could it be to do with how we live as well? Most people eat so much sugar and junk. Plus the world is insanely overcrowded, which in turn means stress, pollution, etc. Then there is the all the garbage in our food and water - all the toxins, pesticides, plastics, chemicals.

Imagine someone born in the countryside in 1900. So long as they survived infancy, they had minimal stress, plenty of space and fresh air, and a diet that consisted mostly of locally grown veg (in fact, they often grew it themselves).

I agree that it’s terrifying. My local vet, who ran marathons, didn’t drink or smoke, and glowed with health, died of cancer last month aged just 52. No warning. He was diagnosed and then dead within weeks.

My mum's side of the family tend to die before 70, mostly by heart attack (my mum made it to 70). My dad's side live noticeably longer, with his mum seeing 93 (she was born in 1906). She worked until she was 70. She developed dementia and her last few years really lacked any quality.

I also wonder if the increased life expectancy is largely down to fewer deaths in infancy and childhood, increasing the overall average, rather than those who survive childhood living longer iyswim. There must be stats on that though?

Also the old numbers must have been skewed by 2 words wars, or is that factored in?

I'm mid 50s now and agree that we are hearing of more and more dying in our age group. I guess it only increases by age bands as my Dad goes to weekly lunch club - he is 81 - and he says most weeks someone known by the group has died. Often its the main topic of conversation:(

I think there's another thing at work here which is that because most people live much healthier lifestyles in middle age now than they did 50 years ago we tend to assume we've "insured" ourselves and we're more surprised than we should be when people die.

People have been educated about the importance of not smoking, drinking in moderation, doing exercise and eating healthily for decades and that's raised the overall level of population health and average life expectancy but obviously it isn't a gold-plated guarantee, as so many people have testified here. People will still die young however fit we are as a population.

I'm in my early 50s and three of my wider friendship network have died (all from cancer). A good friend of mine from the same friendship group (who is now very health-conscious) keeps telling me it must be as a direct result of the fact they were formerly smokers and social drinkers. But we can't know that for sure. A lot of cancers in particular have genetic triggers and we will never now if these women would have been spared developing cancer at a young age if they hadn't smoked or drank alcohol. You can improve your chances of staving cancer off by ticking the lifestyle boxes but a proportion of "healthy" people will become ill and die younger than is average.

The increased health consciousness we have as a society is a good thing overall but it does sometimes give us a false sense of security about our own mortality.

I get that having kids makes you want to live, but most childfree people aren't in a place where they would be fine with receiving a terminal diagnosis. Not at All!

I think that someone in their 20s-40s who would be okay with being told they are terminally ill has some issues!

Reading this has rung true to me. I am 57 and in July I was diagnosed with diabetes, high cholesterol and NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease) I was initially told my blood tests were OK and then the Drs surgery panicked as realised they were anything but good, poor liver enzymes, glucose plasma of 19.4 etc. My choloesterol is apparently hereditary so will be going on statins, but it is 9.4 (should be 3.9 or less if you are diabetic as high risk of cardiac problems and strokes) I have suddenly woken up and realised, here come all the health issues just after my menopause, along with Nodular Prurigo and insomnia.

My parents both lived until they were 80 and my dads parents both in their late 90s. My grandads both smoked, but lived very long lives (one smoked 2 cigars a day and the other 10 cigarettes a day until they were 60 then gave up) My own parents were vegetarians, slim healthy and active, both got cancer, my dad died of bowel cancer and my mum died of a combination of Alzeimers and Ovarian cancer

I have lost 3 stone since July and given up smoking, but I am getting terrible pains in my back and ribs and dont think I will make 60, its not dying that scares me but how I die having seen my parents and what they went through, like another poster said, if I have just dementia and cancer ops ahead of me, I will go earlier instead. Having said that I am doing my best to get fit and my viscaeral fat went from excessive to acceptable. so some things are OK.

I thought I was invincible, i took up smoking at the age of 50 following a stressfull period of my life and thought its OK I can smoke for a few years without consequence, well it appears not, and I feel foolish for that and eating lots of rubbish and not exercising in lockdown. I beleive this is something I have brought on myself. I am going to write my will now.

People have been educated about the importance of not smoking, drinking in moderation, doing exercise and eating healthily for decades and that's raised the overall level of population health and average life expectancy

This is all true, but with obesity rates now so high, and rising, we are no longer getting healthier as a population in the same way that we were 20-30 years ago.

Obesity is a killer, it's a significant factor in many conditions, and an increasing proportion of the population is obese.

If you're 50, you've got about a 90% chance of reaching 67. I think that's quite good! And you have a 25% chance of reaching 93. Jeez, imagine what the UK would be like in 2065!

The ONS and the pension funds have lots of calculators for this kind of thing.

A 10% chance of not reaching state pension age seem quite high to me.
We all know more than 10 people so a fair number of people we know will not reach it.

When I was at secondary school and at university, I can think of a very small handful of people who's parent / parents had died... from everyone I know.. wide circles.

My son is 18.. in his close group of friends of 9, 4 of them have had their fathers die. I also know of other 50 somethings who have died.

All relatively well off, healthy with decent lifestyles.

The way sods law works, the best way of guaranteeing you will live to pension age is to not save for a pension! then you will probably live to 100

That is interesting. I know three women who have died of breast cancer. One was fat, none of them smoked. I hadn't realised the other risks were very small.

Is the list after don't smoke still don'ts, like don't exercise etc or list of dos, take drugs and eat meat?

Even more mad when you think many people are choosing to have kids in their 40s as well

Me too lol