Nifty New Risk Calculations of What's Likely to Kill You

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute has published great new charts showing the risk of dying of various causes for men and women from age 35 and on. It will not surprise anyone that smoking is a bad idea (that is, if you want to up your chances of living a long time.*) The abstract of the analysis notes:

At all ages, the 10-year risk of death from all causes combined is higher for men than women. The effect of smoking on the chance of dying is similar to the effect of adding 5 to 10 years of age. For men who never smoked, heart disease death represents the single largest cause of death from age 50 on. For men who currently smoke, the chance of dying from lung cancer is of the same order of magnitude as the chance of dying from heart disease from age 60 on, and after age 50, it is 10 times greater than the chance of dying from prostate or colon cancer. For women who never smoked, the 10-year risks of death from breast cancer and heart disease are similar until age 60; from this age on, heart disease represents the single largest cause of death. For women who currently smoke, the chance of dying from heart disease or lung cancer exceeds the chance of dying from breast cancer from age 40 on.

See your risks in the charts below:

For the actual numbers go here for the men's chart and here for the women's chart. 

*Disclosure: I am a former 3-pack a day smoker. I quit 22 years ago. 

Comments

[Elemenope]

Look at the shocking differential between genders in fatalities by age for AIDS.

I guess "cougars" are a myth after all.

[SugarFree]

Elemenope,

A lot of it has to do with the perception pounded into people of your age group that AIDS is as big a problem in the heterosexual community as the male homosexual community in the First World. Thinking of AIDS in epidemiological way and not a politically correct way makes the numbers perfectly understandable.

Less than 6% of men with HIV are straight, according to the CDC. Chip away at those numbers with men who are lying about past same-sex contact and IV drug use, and the Journal of the American Medical Association says that a one-time encounter with a woman who never personally did IV drugs with no protection at all results in a 1 in 5,000,000 chance of contracting HIV.

Of course, if so many people hadn't been so eager to write AIDS off as "that fag disease" then it would have never been necessary to scare the heterosexual community into taking it seriously as a disease that affects them as well.

[Elemenope]

Of course, if so many people hadn't been so eager to write AIDS off as "that fag disease" then it would have never been necessary to scare the heterosexual community into taking it seriously as a disease that affects them as well.

So true. While I have some lukewarm affection for Reagan's two terms in office, this is a snafu that gets laid right at his doorstep, as his policy and public comment decisions helped to create it.

Bad Reagan! [Hits Reagan's corpse with rolled-up newspaper] Bad!

And, simply because it is not endemic to the heterosexual population in the developed world doesn't mean it couldn't be, if it were to be taken less seriously, as is evident by the South Asian and African experience with the disease.

[Naga Sadow]

Ron,

How much must you smoke to fall into these catagories? You stated you were a 3 pack a day smoker. I have friends that are pack a day smokers and who only smoke 3 cigs a day.

On a personal note. What kind of smokers exactly? I've never smoked a cigarette in my life but for roughly 5 years I was high at least 4 or 5 times a week.

[JCoke]

but what about the terrorists??? They are all out there and they want to kill me...

[Episiarch]

one-time encounter with a woman who never personally did IV drugs with no protection at all results in a 1 in 5,000,000 chance of contracting HIV

Thank god. Still have to watch out for herpes, though.

"Look, yes, I have banged hundreds of broads, internationally, but know this: I wrap my rascal TWO times 'cause I like it to be joyless and without sensation as a way of punishing supermodels."

[Ron Bailey]

Naga Sadow: According to the JNCI study:
"A never smoker has smoked less than 100 cigarettes in his life; a current smoker has smoked at least 100 cigarettes or more in his life and smokes (any amount) now; a former smoker has smoked at least 100 cigarettes in the past, but no longer smokes now."

[Old timer]

As a 71 year old non-smoker, all I have to do is make it 4 more years and all danger from death disappears? Wow, it's like winning the Publisher's Clearinghouse and not having to put up with Ed McMahon.

[SugarFree]

Epi,

If you wrap up your chick stick, it falls to 1 in 50,000,000.

A wise man once said:

Condoms are the most feminist of the birth control methods, they strip almost all pleasure out of sex for men.

[Naga Sadow]

Old Timer,

Correct old timer, you will become immortal. Just watch out for sword wielding maniacs on a never ending quest to be "The One".

[dhex]

i've always wondered how people in the past found time to smoke two or three packs of cigarettes. pulling 18 hour days would help, no doubt, as did being able to smoke anywhere. (comparatively speaking)

[Naga Sadow]

Thanks Ron. I get the impression that a joint is being counted as a cigarette.

[Episiarch]

If you wrap up your chick stick, it falls to 1 in 50,000,000.

Only a tenfold increase? Ha ha, fuck that. I'll tell you what the trick is: don't sleep with girls with diseases. I have now given you the secret to life.

[Naga Sadow]

Episiarch,

Leon Phelps: My name is Leon Phelps, and to those of you that are uninitiated, I am an expert in the ways of love. I have made love to many fine ladies from the lowliest bus station skank to the classiest most sophisticated, educated, debutant, high society... bus station skank.

SugarFree,

Leon Phelps: But guys you can not blame the wang.

[J sub D]

Smoking is bad for you?
Has this been confirmed?
If so, we should teach the kids about that in school. Maybe even require warning labels on smoking products for the multitudes of American smokers who are unaware of this grounbreaking news.

[SugarFree]

dhex,

When it's something you believe in, you make the time.

I watched my dad smoke himself into a heart attack at 33. He'd have a cigarette in bed before getting up to take a morning piss. He'd smoke while eating. He'd smoke while swimming in a pool. I have no doubt I was conceived in cloud of smoke, and born in the same--my mother's cervix hacking me out like screaming phlegm.

That's the sort of dedication to self-destruction you don't see much anymore. Thankfully.

[Episiarch]

i've always wondered how people in the past found time to smoke two or three packs of cigarettes

Ever seen a chain smoker in action? Mindblowing. I have smoked and I like it and I can't conceive of doing that.

[SugarFree]

Epi,

She May Look Clean...

[Jeff Willis]

Wow, now THAT is scary indeed. Who would have think it.

Jess

http://useurl.us/12m

[Episiarch]

Your link is bad, NutraSweet.

[texas_libertarian]

Shooting up heroin isn't on there. I guess I'm fine then...

[SugarFree]

Suck it, HTML.

Heir

[texas_libertarian]

Hey SugarFree

How do you put links on your post?

[Naga Sadow]

texas_libertarian,

I'm pretty sure my info is bad or out of date but . . . my understanding was that no real data is kept or recorded concerning heroin, cocaine, crack, etc. Something about the federal government refusing to do basic research on such "dangerous" drugs.

[Elemenope]

How do you put links on your post?

use the "a" hypertext tag. An explanation is here.

[texas_libertarian]

Thanks, Eleme!

[Elemenope]

no prob

[Yogi]

Wait, how big is the circle for terrorism?

[dhex]

I watched my dad smoke himself into a heart attack at 33.

jesus christmas.

i had an old boss here who said she used to smoke in the morning while taking a shower. i still don't understand how she did that while taking care of the whole showering thing.

still, she had to smoke every 20 minutes or so. even in the 80s most offices were smoke free, right? (she's a lawyer).

i was never that dexterous, i suppose. plus a three pack a day habit in the city will cost you 840/month now, if you stay in the legit economy. (dunno what grey market prices are; they were five bucks a pack about a year ago.)

[SugarFree]

Yogi,

It's there. You probably don't have the screen resolution to see a dot only a few microns across.

El,

Thanks for the "out to lunch" answer. Although, to be fair, with my track record lately, asking me for HTML advice is probably not a good idea. Stupid tags.

[Dagny T.]

Where are the risks associated with "good time girls" in Bailey's nifty chart? Those broads will make you waste all your money, give you gonorrhea, AND by sleeping with them you'll be inadvertently helping the Axis!

SF,

Did you see the "bag of trouble" one? Awesome.

[SugarFree]

Dagny,

I think the "bag" of trouble is really "her" scrotum.

[Elemenope]

Wait, how big is the circle for terrorism?

A hundred of them would fit inside the period at the end of this sentence.

Thanks for the "out to lunch" answer. Although, to be fair, with my track record lately, asking me for HTML advice is probably not a good idea. Stupid tags.

I was, until recently, cripplingly bad at closing all the relevant quotemarks and tagmarks necessary to make a linky.

too much typey, not enough thinkey.

[Episiarch]

Wait, how big is the circle for terrorism?

About as big as the hole they rammed the PATRIOT ACT through? Why aren't you frightened?!?

[Douglas Fletcher]

According to the chart, I'm already dead.

[socctty]

I wish this had info about obesity as well.

[JP]

"even in the 80s most offices were smoke free, right?"

Dream on.

[beth]

Epi: if you wear two condoms at once, the friction can cause them to tear and they won't work as birth control anymore.

[TJIC]

SugarFree wrote:

> Less than 6% of men with HIV are straight, according to the CDC. Chip away at those numbers with men who are lying about past same-sex contact and IV drug use, and the Journal of the American Medical Association says that a one-time encounter with a woman who never personally did IV drugs with no protection at all results in a 1 in 5,000,000 chance of contracting HIV.
>
> Of course, if so many people hadn't been so eager to write AIDS off as "that fag disease" then it would have never been necessary to scare the heterosexual community into taking it seriously as a disease that affects them as well.

Uh...your argument is "reality is X, not Y ... if it hadn't been for large numbers of people correctly apprehending reality X, then it never would have 'been necessary' to lie to them and falsely claim that X is false and Y is true" ?

Next up: a campaign to convince people that death from falling out out of our vehicle and on to the road is just as likely to affect us car drivers as it is to affect motorcyclists...and, after all, if we car drivers didn't think that that's mostly a problem for motorcyclists, we would FORCE people to lie to us...

[CDC]

In case you blinked and missed it: The long predicted heterosexual AIDS epidemics that never happened in the US, Canada, Europe or Asia were officially called off a few weeks ago by top officials at the World Health Organization. These same experts stated that the only place on earth where heterosexual AIDS is happening (or supposed to be happening if you can believe the same institutions that misrepresented the whole threat for two decades) is in sub-Saharan Africa where they claim people have a series of ever changing multiple, concurrent sexual partners. The idea that only these particular black people (mis)behave in this particular way seems oddly racist.