Ask a group of people over a certain age if any of them have ever experienced a heart attack or cancer. If the number of “yes” answers totals zero then you don’t have a story, much less a moral. But if even one person says yes, this sends the message to younger people that getting older is something to be dreaded and avoided at all costs.
Data from the National Social, Life Health, and Aging Project is springing up all over the Web and is being used for a wide variety of reasons, but not once has it been used to educate younger people about how many people grow older without having ever had, much less died of, some horrible disease or condition.
The study reveals that 11 percent of people aged 65-74 have had a heart attack. That’s bad news, right? Wait a minute! Flip that around: 89 percent have not had a heart attack. Of those aged 57-64, 90 percent haven’t had a heart attack. Even by the age of 85, still 83 percent have never had a heart attack. Bear in mind, too, these people avoided being killed in an automobile accident every few minutes for the bulk of their adult lives.
Let’s keep going down the list and find out just how much awfulness there really is not.
What are the big aging bugaboos? Diabetes is a huge killer, but it doesn’t touch 81 percent of people aged 57-64. At age 85, it still hasn’t come near 62 percent of this age group. Cancer is the bane of our existence, yet 92 percent of those aged 57-64 have never had it, and it still hasn’t caught up with 85 percent of those who reach age 85. Let’s shed some light on the nightmarish fear of having a stroke by pointing out that 87 percent of those who reach age 85 do so without ever realizing that fear.
Article comments
1 - Mark Buckingham
Excellent points that sensationalist, doom and gloom media outlets would never waste their breath on. Thanks!
2 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Nice Article...
BUT, it's no real big surprise. This type of cr@p happens with all supposed "irrefutable" evidence/facts from the scare about Global Warming all the way to the misinformation about Triclosan. Unfortunately,(I have to agree with Mark) sensationalism about impending doom generates ratings,so, we'll always have to do the research on our own to find out the truth.
3 - Dr Dreadful
Well, Diana - yes, but...
I would suggest that a major factor in the 65-74 age group having succeeded in reaching that age is that most of them have not had a heart attack, cancer etc.
I suspect that if you redid those figures and included both those who are aged 65-74 and those who would have been that age had they survived, you might see some more sobering numbers.