a heart disease cure would incr. avg life expectancy by 16+ years, while a cancer cure only 1+. Is this true?

Question

I heard/read this once and was wondering if this is true as is doesn't make sense considering all the people that die of cancer.

Answer 1

You should cite the source of this information, ie (reports or research from the National Library of Medicine - Entrez Pubmed - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed ). Perhaps you read the report out of context.

Answer 2

You need to read the complete stats to understand this statement properly. Stats are meaningful only in context. An example to better understand: suppose you have a country were there is a lot of deaths from war in young adults. Of course, in that country there will be less cancer-related deaths, because people die younger from another cause. Then, without context, you could conclude that war protects against cancer, which is totally absurd.

In the case you are discussing, you seem to conclude that less people die from cancer than from heart disease. But that's not exact; from the data you have, it could also mean that people on average die *younger* of heart disease than cancer, which, I believe, is true, at least in obese people. And since obesity is now pandemic, at least in US and Canada... Make your conclusions.

Statistics will often be manipulated in order to justify funding, which I think is what has been done in that case. And since there is no "one cure" either for the general "heart disease" or "cancer", you cannot assess the validity of such a statement. Heart disease could be anything from your basic artery blocage, which is highly frequent (and closely related to bad lifestyle), to congenital heart malformation, which is pretty rare and has very little influence on overall life expectancy...

Answer 3

I think the meaning was intended to be that there are 16 times more people with heart disease than with cancer. That would account for the difference in OVERALL life expectancy increase of the total population, all other things being equal. Best of luck.

Answer 4

I totally agree with no names answer. You question and info make no sense.

Answer 5

Please indicate where you got this information,seems it is totally inaccurate and to contradict you statement would not make any more sense than your question.