It turns out that answering 12 simple yes or no questions can give you a decent idea of whether you're going to be alive in 10 years, at least if you're older than 50.
Calculating the odds of dying
Points are allotted based on age, gender, disease, overall fitness and tobacco use. The greater number of points a person is assigned, the more likely that person will die during the next decade. The goal is to determine which patients should consider preventive interventions. According to the research, Anyone with a score of 14 or higher had a 95 percent chance of dying in the decade.
|If this describes you||Add this many points|
|Age: || |
|Men||Add 2 points|
|Current tobacco use||Add 2 points|
|Low body mass index||Add 1 point|
|Diabetes||Add 1 point|
|Non-skin cancers||Add 2 points|
|Chronic lung disease||Add 2 points|
|Heart failure||Add 2 points|
|Difficulty bathing||Add 2 points|
|Difficulty managing finances||Add 2 points|
|Difficulty walking several blocks||Add 2 points|
|Difficulty pushing or pulling large objects||Add 1 point|
A colonoscopy, for example, might detect a small abnormal polyp that could develop into full-blown colon cancer in eight years, said Dr. Marisa Cruz, the lead author of the study. If that is the case, then it might not be worth the burden, risks and costs of close surveillance if the patient is likely to live five more years in the first place.