Comments on: Historical Changes in Causes of Death

By: HRB

HRB — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:29:00 +0000

Perhaps Because since then we have seatbelts and airbags in cars; Horrific devastating accidents that should and almost do kill you are now survivable thru major advancement in medicine; there’s OSHA…
(Sorry, I shouldn’t have wasted my time adressing such a simpleton. I know all these things would be known to any and every educated reader, but there’s people like this guy, and they vote, so are we all doomed.
And look at the other asinine comments. Cancer is being diagnosed in 20-50 year olds at distressing rates, and significantly higher than the 2010 graph shows because it only shows mortality, not morbidity. ..

I just hope policy, decision, and law makers aren’t this simple minded. Can we really afford a society where eventhough death rate is going down down down, an ever increasing number are sick with expensive devastating illnesses? And not dieing, just being expensive sick people, that quite a way to live.

By: HRB

HRB — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:11:00 +0000

Test

By: Ernie

Ernie — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 19:56:00 +0000

Probably because a larger percentage of the population were working on farms or in factories, and were more likely to die from infection from any accidents, regardless of the machinery involved. Remember that in 1900, even Antibiotics weren’t invented.

By: John Bailo

John Bailo — Sat, 25 May 2013 03:54:00 +0000

Why were accidents so much more lethal in 1900? Supposedly we’re now surrounded by unsafe machines like cars as we absorb carcinogens in our sprawling unwalkable suburbs.

By: Yannick

Yannick — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 04:34:00 +0000

Before the Nazis, eugenics was well-received indeed.

By: Michelle C. Funk

Michelle C. Funk — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:52:00 +0000

Wow. That was quite the shout-out to eugenics. I’ve never particularly well-informed about eugenics, but I wasn’t aware that it was ever so accepted in the medical community as a long-term solution for disease.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:34:00 +0000

Exactly. If you grow old, you will most likely die of heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. Somehow that is a lifestyle choice.

By: Erational

Erational — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:48:00 +0000

Agreeing with the other comments that referring to these as ‘lifestyle diseases’ is problematic (the author does seem to imply recognition of the problem with this). With some notable exceptions (viral- and bacterial-triggered cancers, smoking-induced cancers and cardiovascular diseases, alcoholic liver disease, etc) the strongest risk factor is generally genetic predisposition. Involuntary exposure to chemicals from plastics, pesticides, etc is another strong factor, but one that is extremely difficult for an individual to avoid, unless they have a significant amount of time, money, and energy to devote to the project — and, even then . . .

People today, on the whole, are much more knowledgeable about health and nutrition, and cultivate health with a dedication unmatched in previous eras. Everyone has to die of something, however — even those of us who “do everything right” according to prevailing health ideology.

By: Tusconian

Tusconian — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:11:00 +0000

Why? People die from cancer and heart disease more than diptheria, tuberculosis, influenza, and gastrointestinal disease now because we now are capable, due to medical science, of either curing relatively minor diseases like these with little more than a bottle of pills and bed rest, or avoiding them all together either through vaccines or increased knowledge of hygiene, diet, and so forth. Cancer and especially heart disease tend to kill people later in life, while influenza and tuberculosis could kill anyone of any age. We’re living long enough to die from diseases that tend to happen in old age, and are very hard to cure, instead of dying as young adults by something that could be cured by antibiotics or a short hospital stay.

By: amelia

amelia — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:32:00 +0000

What Yrro and Rosario said. I think it’s important not to buy into the ideology implied by the term “lifestyle diseases” — namely, that no one would get these diseases if they made the right lifestyle choices.

By: Hanover

Hanover — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Perhaps the Christian Scientists have it right.

By: Rosario

Rosario — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:41:00 +0000

It’s not so much that there is more cancer and heart disease, but that people who would previously have died of things like flu and tuberculosis now survive, and they do have to die of *something*…

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:13:00 +0000

That’s such a cheerful chart. Nearly all of our causes of death have been replaced by “being old.”