For those of us in midlife and beyond, the question of what might one day end our lives isn’t exactly dinner table conversation. Yet the statistics paint a clear picture. Barring accidents or a once-in-a-century pandemic, five familiar culprits dominate the mortality charts across Western nations. In England and Wales, for example, the top five causes of death in 2022 were dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease), ischemic heart disease, chronic lung diseases, stroke, and lung cancer (alzheimers.org.uk). Similar profiles appear in the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia and other developed countries, with heart disease and cancer typically leading the pack. Globally, heart diseases alone account for roughly one-third of all deaths, and cancers for almost one in five (ourworldindata.org).
The remaining leading causes in affluent nations include stroke, chronic respiratory diseases, and dementia, all of which have become more prominent as populations age. The silver lining? These top killers are largely non-communicable diseases, meaning they develop over time and often have roots in our daily habits. In other words, our lifestyle choices – what we eat, whether we smoke, how active we are, how we handle stress – have a profound influence on how we eventually die. Below, we explore each of these five leading causes of death and the lifestyle factors that help drive them, as well as other contributors in the background.
Heart disease has long reigned as the number one cause of death in Western countries. In the U.S. alone, it claimed about
702,000 lives in 2022 – roughly one in every five deaths (cdc.gov).
In the UK and Canada, heart disease (often specifically coronary artery disease) consistently ranks at or near the top of mortality causes each year. Broadly speaking, “heart disease” encompasses conditions of the heart and blood vessels, but it’s coronary heart disease – blockages in the arteries that can lead to heart attacks – that drives most of the fatalities. Modern medical advances have made some headway in reducing heart disease death rates over the past few decades, yet it remains alarmingly prevalent. Part of the reason is that we’ve gotten very good at keeping people alive into older age, only to have many eventually succumb to heart conditions.
Another reason is that many of our habits continually overwork and damage the heart.
The lifestyle-related contributors to heart disease are by now well-known, if not always well-addressed. An unhealthy diet tops the list – diets high in saturated fats, trans fats, salt, and sugar contribute to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity, all major risk factors for heart attacks and strokeswho.int. Physical inactivity is another: a sedentary lifestyle weakens the heart and promotes weight gain and metabolic problems (who.int).
Smoking is a huge offender as well, damaging blood vessels and greatly increasing the risk of atherosclerosis (the buildup of arterial plaque) that underlies most heart attackswho.int. And while a glass of wine with dinner might be fine, heavy alcohol use over years can contribute to high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, and other heart issueswho.int. These behaviors often work in concert – for instance, a poor diet and inactivity leading to obesity and diabetes, which in turn elevate blood pressure and cholesterol, stressing the cardiovascular system.
The impact of these lifestyle factors is both profound and encouraging: as many as 80% of premature heart disease and stroke cases are preventable through healthy habits (heartandstroke.ca).
Consider that nine in ten Canadians have at least one risk factor for heart disease or stroke – such as smoking, poor diet, or inactivity – yet making changes in those risk factors can significantly delay or avert illness. Quitting smoking, for example, starts to reduce cardiovascular risk within months; eating a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables helps control blood pressure and cholesterol; regular exercise strengthens the heart muscle; managing stress and getting enough sleep also benefit heart health. It’s not just public health boilerplate – these steps truly matter. One long-term study famously found that people who followed simple health guidelines (not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and eating a healthy diet) had dramatically lower rates of heart attacks and lived longer than those who didn’t. While genetics and family history also play a role (you can’t choose your parents), the overwhelming majority of heart disease risk is modifiable.
Indeed, the World Health Organization highlights unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, tobacco use, and harmful alcohol use as the most important risk factors for heart disease (who.int). High blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol often develop as intermediate effects of those behaviors, so keeping those numbers in check through lifestyle (and medications if needed) is vital. Other contributors to heart disease, though less significant than lifestyle, include genetic predispositions, mental stress, and environmental factors like air pollution – but these tend to be overshadowed by the big four of diet, exercise, smoking, and alcohol.
It’s worth noting that heart disease is not an equal-opportunity killer. It tends to strike men at higher rates in midlife, though women catch up after menopause. And it doesn’t always announce itself – sometimes the first symptom of heart disease is a fatal heart attack.
That’s why doctors harp on knowing your blood pressure and cholesterol, and why public health campaigns urge us to swap the couch for a walk around the block. The dominance of heart disease as a cause of death is a sobering reminder of the cumulative toll our everyday choices can take on that tireless organ in our chest.
If heart disease is king, cancer is a close crown prince in the hierarchy of Western world killers. In some countries, cancer has even eclipsed heart disease as the leading cause of death – for example, cancer is the #1 cause in Canada and Australia in recent years. Taken together, all malignant cancers account for roughly 20% of deaths globallyourworldindata.org, and about one in every four or five deaths in many Western countries. It’s an umbrella that spans hundreds of different diseases, from lung and breast cancer to leukemia and pancreatic cancer. Virtually every family has been touched by cancer in some form, making it not just a leading cause of death but a leading cause of fear. The nature of cancer – essentially, our own cells growing out of control – means that some risk comes just from living long enough (age is a big factor, since cellular disrepair accumulates). But lifestyle factors loom large here too, and epidemiologists have worked hard to quantify just how much of the cancer burden could be avoided.
The results are striking: an estimated 42% of cancer cases and 45% of cancer deaths in the U.S. are attributable to modifiable risk factors (cancer.org).
In other words, almost half of the cancer deaths in America might be preventable. Globally, the World Health Organization attributes more than 50% of all cancer deaths to known modifiable riskscancer.org, with the rest due to factors we can’t control (like genetic mutations or unexplained bad luck). By far the most significant lifestyle contributor is tobacco.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable cancer death, responsible for about 26% of all cancer fatalities worldwide (cancer.org).
It’s the chief driver of lung cancer, which alone remains one of the top cancer killers in Western countries. In fact, using tobacco (whether cigarettes, cigars, or chewing) causes almost 7 out of 10 lung cancer deathscancer.org – a nearly direct line from the habit to the disease. But smoking’s cancerous reach doesn’t stop at the lungs; it contributes to cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, pancreas, bladder, and more. The good news is that lung cancer rates have started to decline in some countries as smoking rates have fallen, but the bad news is that historical smoking patterns are still killing people today (since lung cancer can develop decades after exposure). And despite progress, millions continue to smoke, ensuring tobacco-related cancers will trouble us for years to come.
Beyond smoking, diet and obesity are major players in cancer risk. Carrying excess body weight increases the risk of several cancers (including colorectal, post-menopausal breast cancer, kidney, and others), and one analysis found that obesity was responsible for about 7.8% of cancer cases and 6.5% of cancer deaths in the U.S.cancer.org.
Diets heavy in red and processed meats and light on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains have been linked to higher cancer incidence, particularly colorectal cancer. Meanwhile, alcohol consumption contributes to cancers of the liver, breast, colon, and more – about 4% of cancer deaths are attributed to alcohol use in that same U.S. analysiscancer.org. Then there’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation from too much sun or tanning beds, which is the primary cause of skin cancers (including deadly melanoma); it accounted for around 5% of cancer cases in the study, though a smaller share of deathscancer.org. And let’s not forget physical inactivity, which not only indirectly contributes via obesity but also seems to have direct effects on things like colon and breast cancer risk (about 2–3% of cancers are linked to lack of exercisecancer.org). Taken together, these lifestyle factors paint a picture of cancer as, in large part, a disease of how we live – not in total, but in significant part.
Of course, not all cancers are preventable.
Some are driven by genetic predispositions (for example, BRCA mutations greatly up the risk of breast and ovarian cancers in certain families), or by unavoidable exposures in the environment. Some cancers have infectious origins – the human papillomavirus (HPV) causes most cervical cancers and some throat cancers, hepatitis B and C viruses contribute to liver cancer, and so on. Vaccination and screening play a role in preventing these where possible (such as HPV vaccines or hepatitis treatments).
Aging remains a major risk factor for many cancers because our cellular repair mechanisms wear down over time. But even here, scientists believe that a healthy lifestyle can bolster our bodies’ defenses: a diet rich in antioxidants from fruits and veggies, regular exercise, and not smoking all help our cells weather the years with less damage. The bottom line is that while we can’t eliminate cancer – there’s no zero-risk lifestyle – we can stack the odds in our favor.
And at a population level, promoting healthier behaviors could save hundreds of thousands of people from a cancer diagnosis or death. In a way, we have a strange coexistence with cancer: it is ubiquitous, potentially lurking in all of us, but how and whether it manifests is shaped by a mix of fate and choice. Our goal, through lifestyle choices, is to tip that balance toward health as much as humanly possible.
One moment you’re chatting with a loved one; the next, they can’t move their arm or form a sentence. A stroke – essentially a “brain attack” – strikes when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off, either by a clot (ischemic stroke) or a burst vessel (hemorrhagic stroke). It is often sudden and can be devastating, leading to paralysis, speech loss, or death. Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the Western world, typically appearing in the top five causes of death in country after country. In England and Wales, strokes accounted for about 9.3% of all deaths in 2022 (alzheimers.org.uk), and in the U.S., stroke consistently ranks in the top five (with around 165,000 American deaths in 2021, even amid the COVID pandemic) (cdc.gov). Worldwide, stroke is the second-leading cause of death after heart disease (statista.comwho.int). In many ways, stroke overlaps with heart disease – they are both cardiovascular conditions, two sides of the same coin of clogged or weakened blood vessels. It’s no surprise, then, that they share many of the same lifestyle-related risk factors.
The single most important risk factor for stroke is high blood pressure (hypertension).
Chronic high blood pressure quietly damages arteries over time, making them stiff, narrow, and prone to either blockages or ruptures in the brain. How do we get high blood pressure? Often through the usual suspects: excessive salt in the diet, being overweight, lack of exercise, and yes, genetics can play a role too. Diets high in processed foods (loaded with sodium) and low in potassium-rich foods (like fruits and vegetables) contribute to hypertension. Carrying extra weight and living sedentarily tends to raise blood pressure as well.
Smoking directly damages blood vessels and greatly increases stroke risk – smokers have a significantly higher likelihood of stroke than nonsmokers, in part because smoking promotes both atherosclerosis and blood clots.
Heavy drinking can also lead to stroke (moderate alcohol might slightly reduce ischemic stroke risk but raises hemorrhagic stroke risk, so it’s a mixed bag; heavy alcohol definitely is harmful). And diabetes, often a downstream effect of obesity and inactivity, damages blood vessels and doubles the risk of stroke. These are all modifiable factors. The American Stroke Association often reiterates that up to 80% of strokes may be prevented with the right lifestyle and medical interventionshealthline.com. Indeed, a Canadian heart and stroke foundation report similarly noted that almost 80% of premature stroke and heart disease is preventable through healthy behaviors (heartandstroke.ca) – emphasizing how intertwined these conditions are when it comes to lifestyle.
To put it plainly, the things that are good for your heart are also good for your brain. Eating a balanced diet (easy on the salt and saturated fat, rich in veggies, fruits, and whole grains) helps keep blood vessels healthy. Staying physically active keeps blood flowing and arteries more flexible. Not smoking is perhaps the single biggest gift you can give your future brain – the risk of stroke (and heart attack) drops dramatically within a couple of years of quitting smoking, as the blood vessels begin to heal from the tobacco onslaught. Keeping alcohol to modest levels (if you drink at all) and maintaining a healthy weight also pay dividends. Additionally, seeing your doctor to manage “silent” risk factors like high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm that can generate clots), and high cholesterol is crucial. Many people don’t know they have high blood pressure or AFib until a stroke hits, which is why these conditions are sometimes called silent killers on their own. From a lifestyle perspective, stress management and adequate sleep might also influence stroke risk – chronic stress can contribute to hypertension, and poor sleep (especially untreated sleep apnea) has been linked to stroke and heart risk.
While lifestyle accounts for a great deal, it’s important to acknowledge other contributors to stroke that are less under our control. Age is a major factor – stroke risk rises sharply in our 60s, 70s and beyond.
genetic disorders or structural issues (like aneurysms or rare vascular malformations) can cause strokes independent of lifestyle. And sometimes, despite a healthy lifestyle, strokes can still occur due to freak events – a sudden clot from an artery tear, for example. But these are the exceptions. In the big picture, stroke is largely the end result of a long process that we can influence. The sight of an elderly relative relearning how to speak or walk after a stroke is heart-wrenching, all the more so when you realize how often that fate could have been delayed or avoided. As with heart disease, prevention is the name of the game, and it runs through the everyday choices we make and the vigilance we keep on our health metrics.
Few things are as taken for granted as breathing – until it becomes a struggle.
Chronic lower respiratory diseases – a category that includes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis) – are a leading cause of death in Western countries, especially among older adults. In the United States, chronic respiratory disease was the 4th leading cause of death in 2022, claiming about 147,000 lives that year (cdc.gov) (only heart disease, cancer, and accidents ranked higher). In the UK, chronic lung conditions similarly rank among the top killers, accounting for around 9% of deaths in England and Wales in recent statisticsalzheimers.org.uk. COPD is the poster child of this category – it’s chronic, progressive, and largely irreversible, making every breath a labor. If you’ve ever seen an emphysema patient tethered to an oxygen tank, or heard the wet rattle of a chronic bronchitis cough, you’ve witnessed the heavy toll of these diseases. And overwhelmingly, the number one lifestyle-related cause is smoking.
Tobacco smoke is to the lungs what sandpaper is to a surface – a constant irritant that wears down the delicate tissues over time. About 75% to 85% of all COPD cases are attributable to smoking (lung.orglung.org).
In fact, the CDC reports that smoking accounts for as many as 8 out of 10 COPD-related deat (hscdc.gov) in the United States. It’s a tragically direct line: most people with COPD have a history of long-term smoking, often a pack-a-day for decades by the time symptoms show up. The inhaled smoke triggers chronic inflammation in the airways, gradually destroying the elastic fibers in the lungs and clogging air passages with mucus. Over years, the lungs’ air sacs break down (in emphysema) and the bronchial tubes become thick and narrowed (in chronic bronchitis), leaving the person constantly feeling short of breath. Once this damage is done, it can’t be fully reversed – hence the emphasis on preventing it in the first place by not smoking or quitting as early as possible. It’s no coincidence that as smoking rates soared in the mid-20th century, COPD deaths climbed two or three decades later; and as smoking rates in many Western countries have fallen in recent years, we’re hopeful we’ll see COPD numbers fall in the future (though the lag means current older generations are still suffering consequences of past smoking habits).
While smoking is the heavyweight risk factor, it’s not the only contributor. A significant minority of COPD patients – roughly 1 in 4 Americans with COPD – never smoked (cdc.gov). How do they end up with chronic lung disease? Other environmental and genetic factors can play a role. Long-term exposure to occupational dust, chemicals, or air pollution can cause COPD-like illness; for instance, coal miners or construction workers who inhale dust over years are at risk, as are people who spend years breathing heavy secondhand smoke or polluted city air. In low-income countries, indoor air pollution from cooking fires is a major cause of chronic respiratory disease. Even in high-income countries, air pollution is an important factorwho.int – living in areas with dirty air can worsen asthma and contribute to COPD over time. There’s also a rare genetic condition called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency that can make someone prone to emphysema at a younger age, even without smoking. And asthma (a separate respiratory condition) in childhood or adulthood can, in some cases, lead to chronic airway remodeling that resembles COPD later on, especially if poorly controlled. These are the less significant contributors in the big picture, but they remind us that lung health isn’t only about smoking.
Still, if we’re talking lifestyle, the focus inevitably comes back to tobacco.
Quitting smoking at any age can slow the decline of lung function – a former smoker’s lungs won’t return to pristine condition, but they will lose capacity much more slowly than if the person continued smoking. Many countries have also made strides with public health measures: indoor smoking bans, higher tobacco taxes, and campaigns have gradually changed norms around smoking. In some ways, COPD is a dark legacy of the era when smoking was ubiquitous; it’s a disease of our cultural lifestyle as much as individual lifestyle. For those already living with chronic lung disease, lifestyle still matters: avoiding further lung irritants (like secondhand smoke or air pollution), staying up to date on flu and pneumonia vaccines (respiratory infections can be deadly for them), eating well and staying as active as possible to maintain strength. But for society at large, the lesson of chronic respiratory diseases is clear – when you can’t breathe, nothing else matters, and preserving our lung health by steering clear of tobacco and pollutants is paramount. Each breath is precious, and the ordinary act of inhaling and exhaling is something a COPD patient must fight for every day.
In the past few decades, one cause of death has quietly, steadily risen through the ranks in Western countries:
dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, dementia is now the leading cause of death in the UK (for women, and when all forms of dementia are counted together), responsible for over 20% of deaths in England and Wales in 2022alzheimers.org.uk – even more than heart disease in that year. Other countries are seeing similar trends. Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias have increased dramatically in high-income nations, nearly quadrupling in annual deaths since 2000who.int, and by 2021 dementia had become the 4th leading cause of death in those countries (who.int).
This rise is partly because we’re living longer (age is the biggest risk factor for dementia) and partly because we’ve made strides against other diseases (more people surviving heart attacks and cancer, only to face dementia in later years). Dementia is in a category of its own among the top killers: it’s not a single organ failure like the heart or lungs, but rather a progressive degeneration of the mind. The very term “long goodbye” has been used to describe it – with memory, personality, and basic function slipping away over a period of years. It’s a cause of death that many people dread even more than cancer or heart disease, because of the toll it takes on one’s very identity and on families. And for a long time, it was thought that nothing much could be done to prevent it besides waiting and hoping. But emerging research has turned up hopeful evidence that lifestyle factors can significantly influence dementia risk – not entirely prevent it, but delay or reduce the odds. In fact, some experts now estimate that as much as 40–45% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by addressing key risk factors over the course of life (ucl.ac.uk).
What are those risk factors? Interestingly, they span a lifetime – from education in youth to habits in midlife to health conditions in later life. Lack of education in early life is associated with higher dementia risk (the theory is that building more “cognitive reserve” through education and mental activity gives the brain a buffer). In mid-adulthood, factors like hearing loss, untreated depression, social isolation, and physical inactivity have been linked to greater dementia (riskucl.ac.uk). Think about it: if you can’t hear well and don’t get a hearing aid, you may withdraw socially and mentally – that combination can leave the brain under-stimulated and more vulnerable. Meanwhile, the classic cardiovascular risk factors play a big role in dementia too.
High blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes in midlife are all associated with higher risk of cognitive decline later on (ucl.ac.uk). It appears that what’s bad for the heart is bad for the brain. Clogged arteries and poor blood flow can lead to strokes, which not only cause immediate damage but also contribute to vascular dementia (caused by cumulative little strokes). Even without obvious strokes, long-term hypertension can damage the brain’s small vessels and white matter, affecting cognition.
Smoking is another contributor – smokers have higher dementia rates than nonsmokers, likely due to vascular damage and oxidative stress.
Excessive alcohol use over years can cause alcohol-related dementia and also increase risk of other dementias, so moderation is key. Add to this list some less lifestyle-related factors:
traumatic brain injury (even one serious concussion can raise later dementia risk), and air pollution (which emerging evidence implicates in cognitive decline – tiny pollution particles might trigger inflammation in the brain). All of these were highlighted in a 2020 Lancet Commission report that collectively attributed around 40% of dementia cases worldwide to 12 combined modifiable factorsthelancet.com. The 2024 update added high cholesterol and vision loss to the list, bumping the proportion of potentially preventable cases to roughly 45% (ucl.ac.ukucl.ac.uk).
That still leaves 55–60% of dementia cases that are not easily preventable by known measures. The biggest non-modifiable risk is age – Alzheimer’s disease is strongly age-linked; what is rare in one’s 60s becomes common in the 80s. We simply didn’t have as many 80- and 90-year-olds in the population in the past, and now we do, so more people live into the age range where dementia thrives.
Genetics also play a role. For example, having certain forms of the APOE gene (APOE-ε4) greatly increases Alzheimer’s risk. You can’t change your genes or rewind your age. There is also a lot we still don’t understand about the exact causes of Alzheimer’s – it’s a complex tangle of protein plaques and tangles in the brain that researchers are still unraveling. Nonetheless, the realization that dementia is not entirely an unpredictable bolt from the blue is empowering. It means brain-healthy lifestyle choices might delay the onset of symptoms even if one is predisposed. Keeping the brain active – through learning, social interactions, hobbies, reading, puzzles – seems to build cognitive reserve.
physical exercise is one of the most consistently recommended ways to help the brain, likely because it improves blood flow and reduces cardiovascular risk (some studies even suggest exercise triggers the release of growth factors that are good for brain cells).
Eating a nutritious diet, particularly something along the lines of the Mediterranean diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish, and healthy fats, has been associated with lower risk of dementia.
Managing hearing loss with hearing aids, treating depression, staying socially engaged in the community or with friends, and of course not smoking and moderating alcohol – all of these lifestyle factors are pieces of the puzzle that, collectively, can tilt the odds in favor of a clearer mind in old age. We should also mention sleep – growing evidence shows that chronic poor sleep or sleep disorders like apnea may hasten cognitive decline, whereas good quality sleep might be protective (the brain does a lot of “housekeeping” during deep sleep, clearing out waste including the amyloid proteins implicated in Alzheimer’s).
Dementia is a daunting foe because there is currently no cure once it sets in. Unlike heart disease or cancer, where treatment advances have saved many lives, we don’t yet have drugs that can do more than mildly slow Alzheimer’s disease. That makes prevention and delay all the more critical. Every extra year that someone can live dementia-free is precious – both for them and their family. And while nothing is guaranteed, the fact that nearly half of dementia cases might be avoidable through a lifetime of healthy habits (ucl.ac.uk) offers a hopeful incentive to take those daily walks, manage that blood pressure, and stay connected with loved ones. In a sense, the rise of dementia as a leading cause of death is a side effect of success in other areas: more of us are living long enough to experience cognitive decline. Now the challenge is to add life to those years, not just years to life, by keeping our brains as healthy as our bodies.
It can be disconcerting to confront the big killers head-on. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, lung disease, dementia – these are heavy topics, and many readers over 45 will have personal stories attached to each. The purpose of examining them, however, is not to cast a dark cloud, but to illuminate a path. The pattern that emerges is clear and oddly empowering: how we live greatly determines how we die.
The leading causes of death in Western countries are largely lifestyle diseases.
They develop over decades, fed by our habits and choices along with a dose of genetics and luck. This means that we have, tucked within our daily routines, an extraordinary opportunity to influence our fate. By no means does a healthy lifestyle grant immortality – plenty of joggers have had heart attacks, and lifelong nonsmokers can get lung cancer. But shifting the odds in our favor can delay the onset of illness, improve quality of life, and sometimes mean the difference between a quick demise and a long, drawn-out struggle.
It’s also worth remembering that lifestyle changes need not be drastic or joyless. The same recommendations appear again and again: eat a balanced diet (more plants, less junk), move your body regularly, don’t smoke, go easy on the alcohol, keep your mind engaged, and get regular health checkups. These habits don’t just prevent death; they make the years we have more vibrant and independent.
A heart-healthy diet and exercise regimen will give you more energy today, not just protect your arteries for tomorrow. Quitting smoking will let you breathe easier within weeks. Staying socially and mentally active enriches your days with meaningful connections and stimulation. Think of these lifestyle shifts not solely as insurance policies against dying, but as ways to live more fully. The fact that they also dramatically lower the risk of the five big killers is almost a bonus.
As we look at Western societies, we see a paradox: we have unprecedented medical knowledge and technological means to combat disease, yet our behaviors often lag behind what we know. It’s not easy to change ingrained habits, and factors like stress, income, education, and environment all influence one’s ability to live healthily. Public health systems are increasingly focusing on these upstream factors – trying to make the healthy choice the easy choice, whether through better food options, urban planning for exercise, anti-tobacco policies, or education campaigns. On an individual level, the challenge is to turn awareness into action. It might start small, with a daily walk or switching sugary drinks for water, and build from there.
In the end, something will inevitably claim each of us. But the goal is to push those end-of-life villains as far into the future as possible, and to face them with our bodies and minds in the strongest shape they can be. The five leading causes of death in Western countries are formidable, but they are not inscrutable mysteries – we understand them well enough to know how to reduce their power. Our most significant enemies often turn out to be ourselves, in the form of our routines and vices. And that’s a fight we can gear up for. So, as you finish reading this (perhaps sitting for a while – time to stand up and stretch!), take heart in the knowledge that you have more control than you might think.
The choices we make today won’t grant eternal life, but they can give us a better chance at more years, and more good years. In a world where death’s top five are constant adversaries, our day-to-day lifestyle is both our sword and our shield. Here’s to wielding it wisely, and living well.
Article Sources:
Office for National Statistics (UK) – Deaths registered in England and Wales, 2022 alzheimers.org.uk
World Health Organization – Global Health Estimates: Leading causes of death who.intwho.int
Our World in Data – Causes of Death (2019) ourworldindata.org
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) – Heart Disease Facts cdc.gov; FastStats Leading Causes of Death 2022 cdc.gov; Smoking and COPD cdc.gov
Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada – Risk and Prevention: Almost 80% of premature heart disease and stroke can be prevented heartandstroke.ca
American Cancer Society – Global Cancer Facts & Figures (5th ed. 2019): Tobacco = 26% of cancer deathscancer.org; ACS Study on Modifiable Cancer Risk (2017) cancer.orgcancer.org
The Lancet (Gill Livingston et al.) – 2020 & 2024 Commission on Dementia Prevention: ~40–45% of dementia cases linked to modifiable factors ucl.ac.uk
