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Surveys show that most people want to die “quickly, in their sleep, and without notice”
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but the odds of that happening for you are incredibly low.
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So, when the time comes, how are you most likely to die?
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In 1901, the average life expectancy of humans was 31 years old,
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and in just over 100 years, that average has gone up to 71.
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If you live in a developed nation like France or Canada,
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you'll likely live closer to 82,
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while developing or majority world countries like Rwanda age to 64 on average.
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And many of these people die in weird ways,
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including 27 people from selfie-related accidents in 2015.
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One man died of heart failure and exhaustion after playing Starcraft for 50 hours on end.
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And annually 100 people die in Russia from falling ice.
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Not to mention about 70 children will choke to death on hot dogs every year.
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But if we use the United States as an example of the western world,
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we had over 318 million people living in 2014, of which more than 2.6 million died.
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Almost half of these people died of heart disease or cancer,
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which is much different than 100 years ago
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when most people died from tuberculosis and influenza.
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Scientific advancements such as antibiotics and vaccines
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have allowed us to die less often of the flu or TB,
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and even decreased how often we die of cancer.
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In the 1970's, the survival rate from cancer was only 50%.
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Today that has increased to 68%, with 15.5 million cancer survivors alive in the US today.
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Thanks SCIENCE!
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Unfortunately, both heart disease and cancer aren't 'sudden killers’
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and involve mostly long, drawn out deaths.
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In fact, 60% of deaths in hospital are attributed to one of these,
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with 1 in 10 of those individuals being in a hospital for a month or more.
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Of course, sudden deaths do happen,
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with over 136,000 people dying of unintentional injuries or accidents in 2014, in the US.
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The media can also affect our fear and anxiety of death from strange causes.
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After all, not one person died of a shark attack in the US during 2014,
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but 38 people were killed by dogs that year.
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Many fear biking within a city, but you're more likely to die walking as a pedestrian,
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with 6,200 pedestrians killed, and only 900 killed in bike accidents.
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For every 1 person that dies in a terrorist attack, 80 will die from alcoholism.
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In fact, a majority of terrorist activity in the west is caused by lone wolf attackers,
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of which 80% were not islamic fundamentalists, but instead, political extremists, nationalist, racial and religious supremacists.
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On a worldwide scale in 2015, 78% of all terrorists deaths occurred in just five countries:
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Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.
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Where you live has a big impact on how you're likely to die too;
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in the 34 poorest countries, you're most likely to die of respiratory problems,
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not from cigarettes, but from ingesting smoke while cooking.
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Females in Japan are less likely to die of heart disease, and live to 87 years old on average,
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compared to 80 years old for American females.
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This is often attributed to the Japanese diet.
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In the future, we'll likely not only live longer,
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but potentially know exactly how and when we'll die.
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In fact, a recent computer software has been developed
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that has been shown to estimate how and when you will die with 96% accuracy,
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based on medical history, lifestyle and many other factors.
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The question is - do you want to know how and when you'll die?
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Let us know in the comments below.
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You can also find out the Top 5 Regrets People Have Before Dying in our Asap THOUGHT video.
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Link in the description for that video.
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And Subscribe for more weekly science videos!