I say noticeable because almost everyone gets cancer, but for many people it isn’t noticeable. And some people have heart attacks or strokes but they are mild enough that they think they are just some other illness.
And I mention old age to remove all the people who die in their teens and 20s.
So assuming you are only talking about people who died from complications of aging, what % of them will never have had any noticeable strokes, heart attacks or cancers?
I think I read that around 30% of people have had a heart attack by their 80s, but I can’t find the graph right now.
I think I understand the question, but it is difficult to word, Let me try.
Subdivide the deaths into two categories: 1. Cause of death medically apparent, such as stroke, cancer, trauma, communicable disease, toxins, etc. 2. Cause of death not apparent without a post-mortem. Consider gray areas to be statistically insignificant. How many are in Category 2?
Of the people who end up dying of old age (pretty much any non-accidental death after age 70) what % of them have never had a heart attack (that required medical intervention)? What % never had a stroke (that required medical intervention)? What % never had cancer (that required medical intervention)?
I’m not so much asking about people that never have any of the 3. But some people will have strokes but never have cancer. Some will have cancer but never have a heart attack.
What are the odds you can make it to your 70s and 80s and never have a heart attack, stroke or cancer that causes you to require medical intervention and that is also not the cause of death?
I don’t know that you will be able to find the answer to that question. You can get the information about the percentage of deaths caused by a stroke, heart attack or cancer because death certificates list the cause of death (including underlying causes) - but the death certificate for an 80 year old who dies of kidney failure won’t mention that he had a stroke at 47 or skin cancer at 52.
OTOH, my step-mother died of lung infection at 97 (with severe dementia). So she would qualify, as far was we know, for the OP’s “none of the above”. My father needed a stent for his heart artery but never had an attack, and 2 of my wife’s grandparents, also fit into the OP’s category. One other is still alive, and the other drank and smoked like a chimney, so no wonder the heart attack. OTOH, if you don’t hit the wall with one of the OP’s big 3, then you will probably be one of those sprightly (or forgetful) 90-somethings. Now that the generation ahead of me is reaching that point, my observation is this: old folks are fine until they run into some medical problem - then it’s often like they fell off a cliff, and they are dead within a year. For one, it was that he fell and broke his hip. He got a new hip but never fully recovered, got an infect 6 months later and was dead within a year. Similarly with people who have heart attacks. Unless they have one early enough to recover and make a serious lifestyle change, they will be gone from another fairly soon.
I’m going to guess the answer is near 50%. IIRC, a lot of otherwise healthy elderly die from lung and other infections once their bodies become frail enough. plus, it’s only recently that cancer has been considered at all “beatable” so survivors from a while ago who just die now are still rare. A joke from when I was growing up:
“Mommy, mommy, what’s Santa doing here in September?”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Sheldon - you’ve got leukemia!”
My mother passed away two weeks ago at age 93. She was in hospice care for the last month, as it was clear she was declining very slowly. She had no medical diagnoses except for mild dementia. No heart disease, cancer, pneumonia, kidney or liver issues that anyone knew of. Chances are something was going on, but nothing diagnosed. She was lucid til the end when awake, not in pain (by her declaration), and not medicated except for Zoloft and Ativan occasionally.
my father died at 92 and never had stroke , cancer or heart issues. He died 4 days after his wife died.
He died last month so I am not sure what they put down for cause of death but I was told it will probably be listed as heart failure. I will get a copy of his death certificate soon .