Centenarians Dying

[nicholson]

I just tripped over the following:

 

In the latest year for which the data are available - 2011 - 2470 people over the age of 100 died in Canada.  933 of them died aged 100; 590 were 101; 383 aged 102; 257 103; 148 104; 69 105; 55 106; 25 107; 10 were 108; 4 109; and 8 were over 110 (no further breakdown).

 

There are more really-old people around than I had thought.

 

And the median age at which canadian males were dying in 2011 was A)  about four years younger than 'life expectancy' and; B) had risen by 3.3 years over the previous 20 years.  

 

http://www.prdh.umontreal.ca/BDLC/data/can/Deaths_1x1.txt

 

(Brought to you by the gnomes at the: Institute for the Study of Obscure Data, who wish to remind you that the unverified conventional wisdom is almost invariably mistaken.)

 

Rodney.

[Dean Pomerleau]

All,

 

Thanks Rodney. For more readable  information on the rate and causes of centenarian deaths, see this recent article (or this version of the same story). Here are a few interesting tidbits:

• In recent years, the death rate among American centenarians — people who have lived to age 100 or older — has decreased, dropping 14 percent for women and 20 percent for men from 2008 to 2014, according to the report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• In 2000, the top five causes of death for centenarians were heart disease, stroke, influenza and pneumonia (the two conditions are grouped together), cancer and Alzheimer's disease. But by 2014, the death rate from Alzheimer's for this age group had more than doubled — increasing from 3.8 percent to 8.5 percent — making the progressive brain disease the second leading cause of death for centenarians.

• One reason for the rise in deaths from Alzheimer's disease in this group may be that developing this condition remains possible even after people beat the odds of dying from other diseases such as cancer, said Holly Prigerson, a professor in geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

• "People who are physically fit enough to survive over 100 years ultimately succumb to diseases afflicting the mind and cognitive dysfunction," said Prigerson, who was not involved in the report. "In other words, it appears that their minds give out before their bodies do."

• In 2014, there were 72,197 U.S. centenarians, compared to 50,281 centenarians in 2000.

The stuff about increasing rates of Alzheimer's disease among centenarians is all the more reason for CRers to be cognizant of maintaining brain health, as discussed here. 

 

--Dean

[Sthira]

It's soooo cool that people are documented living in better health past 100 and even 110! We should be celebrating this! These people should be treated like royalty and like heroes. We really need to redefine what it means to age and de-age in this society.