ways to die in the future
This PhD-comic had me thinking. In the future, will everyone be dying of cancer?
Looking at the causes of death, there's the heart stopping. That's just a pump. Then there's clogging or leaking of the bloodvessels. Again it's a mechanical problem and we've got at least 2000 years of experience in plumbing. Then there's infections. That's more of an arms-race, but there's a clearly identified enemy that's not part of a healthy body. We can attack the enemy outside our bodies, by cleaning, we can stop it entering our bodies and we have a good chance of telling friend from foe if they get inside us.
That leaves cancer, which if the students quoted in the comic/report is anything to go by, is a LOT harder to deal with. That leaves the impression that in the future, cancer will be a much more common cause of death. Using the table I've linked to and some quick math, it seems that if cardiovascular diseases were eradicated, cancer as a cause of death would increase by 42%.
(That's making the still reasonable assumption that 100% of all people die :-)
Create a utopia where both cardiovascular and infectious diseases are controlled and every fourth death will be from cancer, worldwide.
This ties in with a cherished notion in futurism and a known problem in health services. It was long thought that there was a maximum lifespan for people that we would soon reach, but this has not been the case. Average lifespan has been increasing for a long time and has not slowed down. singularity-believers like Ray Kurzweil happily point to statistics like that, saying that we're already on the road to immortality.
How has this come about? The progression of Medical science has turned deadly diseases into mere chronic ones and increased the lifespan of those with chronic diseases. AIDS and diabetes are two good examples. It seems a sensible priority to save lives, but it also means that the average person will spend more of her lifetime in a diseased and debilitated state.
Had there been an upper limit to our lifespan, this wouldn't have been a problem. Medical science could have fought diseases until they were confined to the very last years of our lives. This was called "compression of morbidity" in the 80's. Instead it turns out that doctors add years of ill health to our lives, with the spiraling costs of healthcare that results in.
Is this an issue we're able to deal with? Would we be willing to take money away from research that aim to save lives, and direct it towards better health for the living? Or are the two intertwined? Is is possible to rid someone of a chronic disease without also increasing their lifespan?
A book on the topic: Guy Brown, The Living End: The future of death, aging and immortality
Looking at the causes of death, there's the heart stopping. That's just a pump. Then there's clogging or leaking of the bloodvessels. Again it's a mechanical problem and we've got at least 2000 years of experience in plumbing. Then there's infections. That's more of an arms-race, but there's a clearly identified enemy that's not part of a healthy body. We can attack the enemy outside our bodies, by cleaning, we can stop it entering our bodies and we have a good chance of telling friend from foe if they get inside us.
That leaves cancer, which if the students quoted in the comic/report is anything to go by, is a LOT harder to deal with. That leaves the impression that in the future, cancer will be a much more common cause of death. Using the table I've linked to and some quick math, it seems that if cardiovascular diseases were eradicated, cancer as a cause of death would increase by 42%.
(That's making the still reasonable assumption that 100% of all people die :-)
Create a utopia where both cardiovascular and infectious diseases are controlled and every fourth death will be from cancer, worldwide.
This ties in with a cherished notion in futurism and a known problem in health services. It was long thought that there was a maximum lifespan for people that we would soon reach, but this has not been the case. Average lifespan has been increasing for a long time and has not slowed down. singularity-believers like Ray Kurzweil happily point to statistics like that, saying that we're already on the road to immortality.
How has this come about? The progression of Medical science has turned deadly diseases into mere chronic ones and increased the lifespan of those with chronic diseases. AIDS and diabetes are two good examples. It seems a sensible priority to save lives, but it also means that the average person will spend more of her lifetime in a diseased and debilitated state.
Had there been an upper limit to our lifespan, this wouldn't have been a problem. Medical science could have fought diseases until they were confined to the very last years of our lives. This was called "compression of morbidity" in the 80's. Instead it turns out that doctors add years of ill health to our lives, with the spiraling costs of healthcare that results in.
Is this an issue we're able to deal with? Would we be willing to take money away from research that aim to save lives, and direct it towards better health for the living? Or are the two intertwined? Is is possible to rid someone of a chronic disease without also increasing their lifespan?
A book on the topic: Guy Brown, The Living End: The future of death, aging and immortality