MVP Part I: Dumb Ways To Die
Preventing early death in a world that’s trying to kill you
“Early death” can be a vague term. Most people consider a steady decline into chronic disease and eventual death a “natural” route. They would argue that “early death” only occurs when you experience a sudden catastrophe (hit by a car) or die of chronic disease before 60. If someone has a heart attack at 90, we applaud their long life. But if it happens at 50, we consider it a tragedy.
I have a stricter view. I would argue any death that occurs before the current limits of human longevity is an “early death”. By these standards, anyone who dies before ~120 years has succumbed to an early death. The business of avoiding an early death is not over at 75. You have the potential to have many rewarding years spent with those you love. It’s up to you to look out for yourself. It’s up to you to maintain your muscle mass, schedule appointments for bloodwork and screenings, and take your medication.
Activities that prevent early death and extend healthspan are often one and the same. How you classify your activities isn’t important. What’s important is that you look at both the long term and short term risks. For our purposes we will define each of these categories as follows:
Extending heathspan is a long term game where you establish particular habits that will result in an extension of healthy years in an individual’s life.
Avoiding early death is a short term focus on what your most imminent risks are in the next ~1–5 years. Actions you take to mitigate these risks fall into this category.
Today we are going to focus on the second category. What are your most imminent risks and how do we mitigate them?
Remember this happy chart?
If you are reading this you likely made it through the perils of childhood (Congratulations!) and are now faced with avoiding accidental injuries, suicide, cancer or heart disease.* If you are between the ages of 10–40 the most likely thing to kill you tomorrow is an accident or suicide. If you are between 40–65 it’s heart disease or cancer.
I’m currently 25. For me, avoiding early death is avoiding an unintentional fatal injury or suicide. I don’t suffer from depression or any other suicide risk factors so my risk there is quite low. My greatest risk of death in the next 1–5 years is death from an accident. Let’s break down this risk even further with the help of happy chart #2.
Filtering out suicide and homicide deaths my greatest risks are:
- Unintentional Poisoning — 64.19% of unintentional injury deaths
- Unintentional MV Traffic — 27.15% of unintentional injury deaths
- Unintentional Drowning — 1.86% of unintentional injury deaths
Unintentional poisoning deaths can be roughly translated as deaths due to drug and alcohol abuse. This is the leading cause of unintentional injury death across all age categories. To prevent unintentional poisoning, the formula is to limit alcohol use and not use dangerous drugs.
The risk of unintentional drowning is low. It accounts for only about 1.8% of unintentional injury deaths in my age bracket. Learning to swim, wearing a life jacket, and not using alcohol on the water takes care of most of this risk.
Unintentional motor vehicle traffic deaths account for 27.15% of unintentional injury deaths for my age bracket. Your personal risk depends on numerous factors. Including the number of miles driven, your age, the type of vehicle you drive, and if you drink and drive. Your risk of death in a motor vehicle under your control starts high at 16 and declines slowly until it begins to skyrocket after age 60.
Knowing this I can start making rules and habits to mitigate this risk such as…
- Establishing safe driving practices — No alcohol, no texting, wear a seatbelt, etc.
- Driving a safe vehicle with a high mass
- Limiting bicycle and motorcycle use (risk of a fatal crash on a motorcycle is 35x that of a car)
- Limiting mileage driven (buses, trains, and planes are safer)
These rules are at the top of my list when I think about preventing early death. For someone older, the rules look very different.
For a 50-year-old, the greatest risk of death in the next 5 years is cancer, heart disease, or accidental injury. Hopefully, they have been practicing habits and behaviors to extended their healthspan and prevent chronic diseases. Their acute focus is then on early detection and intervention. The CDC has a list of recommended cancer and heart disease screenings. That’s a good place to start. What you don’t know has a higher chance of killing you.
Nobody wants to die early. We hope for a peaceful death, surrounded by family, as we drift off to eternal oblivion. But for most, death is a violent and gruesome affair. Common belief says we have little to no control over how we leave this world. It’s a toss of the dice. The reality is there are practical steps you can take towards triaging and mitigating these risks. Take those steps today. The first of many in the journey towards a longer life.
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*Note: this post is on early deaths occurring in the next ~5 years. Accidental injuries and suicide are far less of a risk overall than heart disease and cancer. You are still probably going to die of heart disease and cancer. It’s just that, for the young, they likely won’t kill you today.
