So people who exercise, eat healthy and never touch drugs or excess of any kind and do all they can to stay fit only to die so soon into their lives?
But then you have people who drink, smoke and do drugs in massive amounts for ages but they last for a long time all things considered and sometimes way older then other average people
This isn’t the case for all of them but it happens enough to be noticed
So how and why does this happen?
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Because death is ultimately down to probability.
Someone who smokes is *more likely* to develop conditions like lung cancer or emphysema, but a non-smoker could develop these conditions too, they’re just less likely to do so.
There are other factors that play into death too. some thrill seeking hobbies, for example, ups your chances of dying in an accident.
Athletes who are very into sports and other physical pursuits are less likely to die from obesity-related causes, but more likely to be injured, which could lead to death.
The answer isn’t any one thing. You actually have to look into each case (of death) to see what happened.
In general, though, smoking has bad effects on the lungs, and drinking has bad effects on the liver, and we have more organs than just those two, AND more ways that they can be damaged than just those two. Obesity affects the heart and circulatory system (blood pressure), and then there are cancers (any organ, potentially), car accidents, and any number of diseases and medical conditions.
Genetics play a huge role. Various vices burning through your lifespan isn’t as huge a deal when your organs grant you an abnormally long lifespan to start with. You can have people who might “default” live to 120 shorten their lives by 25% with alcohol and cigarettes and still live to 90. Someone who might “default” to 50 can extend their life 50% with diet and exercise and still only make 75.
These are just arbitrary numbers to make the point, of course. Unfortunately, not everyone is born equal.
|But then you have people who drink, smoke and do drugs in massive amounts for ages but they last for a long time all things considered and sometimes way older then other average people|
That’s called “survivorship bias” – it means you are only noting the ones that lasted – without contextual reference to those who died earlier than expected.
Genetics play a part as well as lifestyle choices. Why do some babies get cancer at a young age? It is unlikely due to their diet as they drink only milk. Sometimes people got lucky with their genes but by abusing their luck, they are increasing the chances to die earlier.
In terms of health smoking and drinking and a lot of other unhealthy things are like rolling dice. It’s theoretically possible to keep on rolling the dice over and over without it ever coming up snake eyes, which is what happens with these smokers who get out unscathed, but the odds are against you especially if you keep on rolling them.
I dunno, I spent 20 years chain smoking, drinking daily and eating cheeseburgers most meals… I had my first heart attack at 38.
I hate those healthy bastards that get away with it.
Smoking and drinking increases your risk of bad things happening, just not to 100%
Some people just get lucky.
The healthier you are, the more likely you are to live long enough to die from something weird.
I went to a funeral today for a man who was super healthy and waterskied into his 70s. Got a brain tumor and it killed him within 7 months. The universe is capricious. We can only control what we can control. Skin cancer runs in my family, I have spent my life preventing it, I expect to live beyond when skin cancer would have got me to see what else does.
Genetics and incredible luck play big parts in stuff like this. Clean living can definitely improve your odds, but you might just have a higher probability to get some sort of cancer or other illness because the genetic lottery was against you. Otherwise, we’d have been able to crack the code by now and extend everyone’s lives. 😀
But look at it this way, medical science and modern infrastructure have been improving those odds steadily for a very long time. If you compare average lifespans at any point in time until now, even within the past 100 years, it’s improved dramatically because more and more people have access to better medical care, clean water, etc.
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