Predicting death

How long will I live? Except for those with teminal illnesses, there is no way to answer that accurately. But you might be able to get an answer to the related question “how likely is it that I’ll die in the next 4 years.”

A study in JAMA this week looks at a point system to predict 4 year mortality in older adults. You get points for being old, having chronic diseases, etc. as follows:
Now total up your points and risk of death of dying in the next 4 years is as follows:

0-5 pts <4%
6-9 pts 15%
10-13 pts 42%
14+ pts 64%

Note that being normal or underweight increased mortality, whereas a high BMI (i.e. being overweight or obese) is associated with decreased mortality. One reason may be that people tend to lose weight from chronic diseases like cancer and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), but it may also be, as I've blogged on before, that current weight categories based on BMI don't reflect actual health status.