Our bones and muscles are more exposed and do the heavy lifting, so why is it more common to die naturally because our organs are too old and tired?
In: Biology
It’s not that organs get “tired” in the sense like we do after a long day. It’s that they are getting more chronically damaged over time, to the point that they fail. Or that they are at risk of something acute happening such as a heart attack. But really, you die when your body can’t do something that is critical to being alive. If your heart can’t pump blood, you die. If your kidneys fail, you die. If your bones ‘fail’, it’s not going to kill you unless something more important does too
It depends how you want to define bone and muscle failure and cause of death…
Our bones and muscles “fail” as we age; we lose muscle and bones become brittle. Not too many old people at the gym or competing in contact sports
Falling a breaking bones is a hidden cause of death….people over 80 who break a hip have close to 20% mortality within 12 months of the break
Organs are single purpose. Bones and muscles are not.
E.g., in the modern developed world, you can live just fine without both your legs and all the associated muscles and bones.
Try living without both your kidneys. Or lungs. Or your one good liver. Etc etc.
So… your bones can fail you. Or more specifically your bone marrow, which is arguably the more important part since it produces your blood and whatnot. It’s called Myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS.
Now often this is a result of some kinda chemical exposure or cancer treatment, but there’s a bunch with no know causes. Just happens to you when you’re over 50, or before you’re 5.
This progresses to leukemia, which I don’t think I need to eli5 for you why that’s bad.
Dying as a direct or indirect result of breaking bones is rather common for elderly people. It becomes easier to do and harder to heal.
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