Health & Medicine
New 'Mortality Index' Calculates Probabilities Of Dying In Next Ten Years
Mark Hoffman
First Posted: Mar 11, 2013 04:42 PM EDT
A "mortality index" developed by researchers in San Francisco is designed for doctors to get basic numbers about their patients likelihood to die within the next 10 years, which would help them to determine how useful complicated treatments would be for a patient.
The test measures things like current tobacco use and chronic lung disease and uses a point system to predict how likely it is that people 50 and older are to die before 2023. Signs that your lifespan may not be as prolonged as you had hoped include getting winded after walking several blocks, having difficulty pushing a chair across the room, and smoking.
Research for this new "mortality index" is based on data of more than 20,000 adults age 50 and older. Participants were tracked for ten years, from 1998 to 2008, during which time about 6,000 of them passed away.
According to lead author Dr. Marisa Cruz of the University of California, San Francisco, the index "wasn't meant as guidance about how to alter your lifestyle." Rather, it is intended to be used by doctors to help patients better understand the usefulness of agressive and potentially painful treatments.
"The most important thing we found was the risk factors that go into estimating shorter intermediate survival are very similar to risk factors that go into estimating the likelihood of longer-term survival," said Cruz in a statement.
Currently, the average life expectancy in the US is 78.2 years - 81 for women, 76 for men. Heart disease is the leading cause of death, followed by certain cancers and respiratory diseases. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death.
Interestingly, according to the study, being slightly overweight is a positive indicator for life expectancy (thinness in older individuals is usually seen as a sign of poor health).
The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The index is mostly for use by doctors, who can use the test to decide whether or not aggressive treatments for things like cancer and diabetes would be beneficial for different patients. The index should be read as loose indicator, researchers stress, not as chiseled-in-stone truth.
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First Posted: Mar 11, 2013 04:42 PM EDT
A "mortality index" developed by researchers in San Francisco is designed for doctors to get basic numbers about their patients likelihood to die within the next 10 years, which would help them to determine how useful complicated treatments would be for a patient.
The test measures things like current tobacco use and chronic lung disease and uses a point system to predict how likely it is that people 50 and older are to die before 2023. Signs that your lifespan may not be as prolonged as you had hoped include getting winded after walking several blocks, having difficulty pushing a chair across the room, and smoking.
Research for this new "mortality index" is based on data of more than 20,000 adults age 50 and older. Participants were tracked for ten years, from 1998 to 2008, during which time about 6,000 of them passed away.
According to lead author Dr. Marisa Cruz of the University of California, San Francisco, the index "wasn't meant as guidance about how to alter your lifestyle." Rather, it is intended to be used by doctors to help patients better understand the usefulness of agressive and potentially painful treatments.
"The most important thing we found was the risk factors that go into estimating shorter intermediate survival are very similar to risk factors that go into estimating the likelihood of longer-term survival," said Cruz in a statement.
Currently, the average life expectancy in the US is 78.2 years - 81 for women, 76 for men. Heart disease is the leading cause of death, followed by certain cancers and respiratory diseases. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death.
Interestingly, according to the study, being slightly overweight is a positive indicator for life expectancy (thinness in older individuals is usually seen as a sign of poor health).
The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The index is mostly for use by doctors, who can use the test to decide whether or not aggressive treatments for things like cancer and diabetes would be beneficial for different patients. The index should be read as loose indicator, researchers stress, not as chiseled-in-stone truth.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone