From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Good News about America's Top Killers
Date: 21 Jan 2005 18:52:22 -0800
Message-ID: <1106362342.630157.255010@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>

>>Well can you tell me just what in God's name are we SUPPOSED to die
of?<<

COMMENT:

Well, if you must know---

Realistically, getting cancer at an advanced age is a pretty good way
to go. Not as good as a sudden MI in the middle of the night from
unexpected and previously unnoticed vascular disease. And not as good
as being shot by a jealous husband at the age of 97. But pretty good.

The thing that makes cancer at advanced age stand out as
epidemiologically desirably, is that cancer compresses morbility time
before death pretty well. Most people need institutional or total
nursing care less than a couple of months. They actually die of
malnutrition and infection as proximate causes, and these are usually
not painful. Nor, half the time at least, is the cancer itself.

People WANT to die of heart disease, but the problem with that is, half
the time heart disease doesn't kill people right away, but makes them
go through a long series of heart attacks and surgeries and periods of
recovery and sometimes outright dependency with chronic heart failure.
There's no way to insure that coronary disease will kill quickly and
without long illness, and usually it doesn't. On the whole cancer's a
lot faster. once you get sick.

The other main causes of death related to aging are morbidity and
institutional care disasters. Stroke and all kinds of dementia are, for
obvious reasons, nightmares for both patients and health care planners.
Osteoporosis and hip fracture also, for the same reasons.

As for infection due to immune decline with aging, it seems to be a
proximate cause of death but is usally secondary to something else
underlying. Most people otherwise healthy and mobile are pretty
resistant to dying of infection. Most infections nail people who've
become immobilized with malnutrician/cancer, hip fracture,
dementia/stroke, and so on. They generally consist of pneumonias and
the urosepsis which takes off anybody immobilized, who has a chronic
catheter for incontinence.

Cheefully,

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Good News about America's Top Killers
Date: 21 Jan 2005 18:37:36 -0800
Message-ID: <1106361456.600814.197610@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>

>>We're already halfway there. We haven't found out how to always make
people live longer, but we certainly know how to always make it seem
longer.......... <<

That's an old joke but a goodie. If you give up red meat and alcohol
you may or may not live longer, but it will certainly SEEM like
longer...

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Good News about America's Top Killers
Date: 22 Jan 2005 14:54:16 -0800
Message-ID: <1106434456.905803.254240@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

There will always be exceptions, and please note what I said about
stroke and dementia. Cancers of the brain in many ways model those
better than they do other cancers, so of course it's not the same
clinical picture. Brain and bone lessions are mostly what give cancer a
bad name.

SBH

From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Good News about America's Top Killers
Date: 24 Jan 2005 20:55:20 -0500
Message-ID: <ct48u8$32g$1@panix1.panix.com>

Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> ... and the urosepsis which takes off anybody immobilized, who has a
> chronic catheter for incontinence.

Then why use catheters instead of diapers?
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.diseases.cancer
Subject: Re: Good News about America's Top Killers
Date: 24 Jan 2005 19:27:34 -0800
Message-ID: <1106623654.795793.143870@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>

Convenience of staff, in part. Also, skin breakdown and bedsores are
worse with chronically wet skin, so you're damned if you do, damned if
you don't.