He got up to make a sandwich for my mother in law, who was very sick, and don’t come back. Massive heart attack and aortic rupture - he was dead before he hit the ground.
My dad had a lot of stress over his career and his share of health issues but found a happy medium and improved his health greatly stating about in his late 40s. He was basically walk/running 2-5 miles a day for several years after retirement. He had a major stroke, recovered somewhat, and then ended up almost dying from a kidney stone and resulting infection. (He could not communicate pain as part of his aphasia.) long story short, he suffered in a lot of ways (pain, disability, loss of dignity) for 4 years before finally succumbing.
In online discussions, we tend to boil everything down to death. Reality is that longer you can put off complications, the better you will be when something more severe happens or you get sick. As you age, each time something happens, your recovery is a little less robust. Go to the doctor, take your statins and take care of yourself.
You say that as if stroke is orthogonal to heart disease. Much of what prevents one prevents the other.
However, many people suffer from heart failure which, despite the name, means partial heart failure. The permanent breathlessness gives them a terrible quality of life. They can live with this for decades sometimes but it's not much fun.
Being worried about dementia but ignoring things like heart disease, diabetes, poor sleep, getting enough exercise, eating a health-promoting diet, etc. is like worrying about paying for retirement but refusing to save and invest.
There are a handful of high-impact habits that meaningfully lower your risk for the major killers people are worried about: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...
Dick Cheney (former USA Vice President) died a few days ago. Let's recap his publically known health:
- 1978 heart attack, age 37
- 1984 heart attack
- 1988 heart attack
- 1988 quadruple bypass surgery
- 2000 heart attack
- 2000 stent
- 2001 balloon angioplasty
- 2001 implantable defibrillator
- 2005 atery repair vascular surgery, stents behind the knees
- 2006 shortness of breath, hospitalized, blood clot
- 2006 travels everywhere with an ambulance standing by. Accidentally shoots friend. Friend has heart attack.
- 2007 deep vein thrombosis treatment, atrial fibrillation
- 2008 minor heartbeat irregularity
- 2010 January heart attack
- 2010 July Left-Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) surgery for worsening congestive heart failure.
- 2012 heart transplant, cardiologist said "it would not be unreasonable for an otherwise healthy 71-year-old man to expect to live another 10 years".
- 2025 death, age 84, from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.
Or President Dwight Eisenhower:
- 1955 heart attack
- ? heart attack
- ? heart attack
- 1968 heart attack, heart attack, heart attack, heart attack
- 1968 cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest
- 1969 death from heart disease
Definitely not the best way to die. Heart disease is palpitations, fibrillation, chest pain, back pain, angina. It's leg swelling, breathlessness, dizziness, fatigue, slow wound healing. It's statins, beta blockers, stents, pacemakers, defibrillators, coronary bypasses, valve replacements, open heart maze scarring, angioplasty. It's not all widowmakers and sudden death. I would pick one of those "fell alseep and didn't wake up" things.
That's not totally off, but the thing about cardiovascular disease is it affects everything because it's how your body distributes oxygen. Stop distributing oxygen and you die.
That's not to say other organs aren't important, it's just that if you replace "cardiovascular" with "oxygen distribution" it becomes apparent that almost by necessity it's going to include a lot of deaths.
note that I said good life. There are lots of bedridden people, I don't want to be like that. I want to be like the old person still doing things in old age.
Monty Python, "The Meaning of Life", Part VII.