The typical age of cardiac arrest is 60. But it seems it is just as, if not more, common for people to live past age 60, without dying of cardiac arrest at age 60. Therefore, I would like to know your thoughts. Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops beating. And since cardiac arrest most typically occurs at age 60, do you think that the heart is only meant to last 60 years, and that the people who don’t die from cardiac arrest (or don’t get it all) just happen to be lucky that their hearts happen to last longer than age 60?
Typical? Or average?
It’s all in how well you maintain the mochine.
Myself, I religiously get a full blood transfusion and new kidneys every 6000 miles or 6 months (whichever comes first), and heart replaced every 24000 miles or 2 years.
Always ask for new parts. Never go with the rebuilt units, as those tend to be unreliable.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. It’s late, so I’m not going to dig up pages of cites, but cardiovascular disease, while it can be genetic, is also linked to a poor diet and lack of exercise. Cardiovascular disease is becoming more and more common in developed countries due to the rise of processed foods and sedentary life styles and can lead to a massive heart attack if not treated.
Some people may have lived a healthy life and be unlucky enough to die of a heart attack at 60 (or have an undiagnosed genetic disorder which led to the heart attack), but lifestyle and food habits are a choice. So no, I don’t think people are meant to drop dead at 60. I also have no idea if the idea that people tend to have heart attacks and die at 60 is factual.
Typical. The age range is 58-62 years. I just picked the age in the middle (and that age is 60). This is my source: Heart Disease: Overview and More
I don’t think we can ever really talk about how long an organ is “meant” to last.
But, let’s say we call humans’ environment tens of thousands of years ago our “natural” environment. We could say that in our natural environment few humans would live to be 60 and so there was little selective pressure on evolving hearts that could last that long or longer.
I don’t know if that’s actually true, but given our body size and heart rate, a typical wear-out time of 60 years seems proportionate to other animals.
However, that’s not the same thing as saying it’s wrong, or lucky, for hearts to last longer in a different environment, with different diet, medicine or whatever. The “best before” was always a function of genetics and environment.
So in terms of the situation now, it’s entirely subjective whether we say hearts are meant to wear out at about age 60 or we say that’s only because too many people have a poor diet and don’t exercise enough.
No. I don’t think it’s luck because that suggests random chance. People who live longer than that either take care of themselves better or are fortunate enough to have genes that allow their bodies to adapt better to the abuse they heap on them. Even genetics isn’t luck because it follows linage rather than springs randomly into being.
Purely anecdotal but the people I know who’ve had heart attacks or cardiac events before the age of 60 almost all have one or more classic risk factors: overweight or obese, poor diet, smokers, little exercise and so on.
Then again I can think of quite a few people 60 or older who also have those risk factors but have apparently healthy hearts. I suppose occasionally genetics can trump poor lifestyle choices.
Mortality from cardiovascular disease has decreased fairly dramatically throughout most of the developed world over the last several decades mostly associated with decreased smoking rates. Some may be from better care of those with disease, both preventative and emergency care. Of course there are also nonpreventable factors.
This might be of interest:
This is exceptionally good advice. It’s amazing how many people ignore the service recommendations in the owner’s manual.
All those 20-somethings who don’t die from car wrecks because they’re texting while driving are just lucky too.
Methinks you are misreading the stats. The article says “The average age for experiencing sudden cardiac death is between 58 and 62 for men” - meaning that within the subset of people who die of sudden cardiac death the average age of death is 58-62 (not to mention that 4 years is a huge range for an average). That a is very different statement from “The average person dies at age 58-62 from sudden cardiac death”.
IOW, if you are destined to die of a sudden cardiac event, the average age at occurance falls within that range. If you are destined to die of another cause, the average age at occurance could be significantly different.
I think people who die at age 60 from cardiac arrest ARE lucky. They don’t have to hang on watching themselves deteriorate day after day. YMMV.
This is the main point. The stats are saying, if you die of cardiac arrest, you’re more likely to die at age 58-62.
Further, if by “average” you mean “median” (which is usually the way scientific studies do it) it means that half the people die at an older age, and half die at a younger age. If you mean “mean,” the number is misleading.
Relevant article is relevant.
In a nutshell, your experience is almost guaranteed to be longer than the average experience. IE: Your heart will almost always last longer than the average heart.
Amen. My dad died quickly of a heart attack at age 60. My mother lived to be 87, but she had Alzheimer’s for her last several years and was bedridden and disintegrating before our eyes.
I want to go like my dad, and not like my mom.
Ahem. I turn 62 next week. :dubious:
Well, off you go then. 
http://healthyfoodscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/lctsurvivalcurvecohort79_tcm77-256540.png
According to that survival curve even among people born in 1951, 90% can expect to survive to 60. For those born later the rates of survival are even higher. A good deal of the people who don’t make it to 60 who were born in 1951 died in childhood.
Again the premise is flawed.
The typical age of death from cardiovascular disease varies by country. Per figure 2.3b of the article I linked to:
United States median age of death from ischemic heart disease is 76 for males and 84 for females. Australia does a bit better with 78 and 85 respectively.
Saudi Arabia it’s 58 for males and 72 for females. The smallest male female discrepency seems to be India with 67 male and 69 females. So on.
Are those country specific differences because some countries have all the luck? Has the developed world become particularly luckier over the past three decades?
Of note, the same behaviors that result in less risk of early death from heart disease, also are correlated with significantly less chance of developing dementia or other cognitive or physical decline as we age into our 80s: regular exercise, not smoking, not drinking more than moderately, and a diet high in vegetables (and possibly fruits).
Maybe. I’m sure genetics have something to do with it and, of course, no one has control over the genes they inherit. But diet and lifestyle have something to say about it, as well, and we all know that not everybody consumes things in moderation and tries to get exercise.