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[–]Rob636OC: 2 5334 points5335 points  (141 children)

So what I gather from this: If I can avoid cardiovascular disease AND cancer, I’m basically immortal as long as I don’t fuck around with household animals or Africa. Thanks OP!

[–]Angdrambor 3040 points3041 points  (82 children)

Those two are the default. If you get killed by heart disease or cancer, it's like, Congratulations you didn't get killed by anything, but your species isn't allowed to live long, so here you go.

[–]flamebirde 601 points602 points  (25 children)

Relevant comic here: wondermark

[–]Stevedaveken 98 points99 points  (1 child)

Wow, I had completely forgotten about wondermark.. I read the shit out of that in college.

[–]glorpian 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Maybe you're more into the midnight pancakes nowadays?

[–]WarLordM123 39 points40 points  (19 children)

People seem pretty positive about psychiatric drugs. Is the implication that life in previous societies would have caused less mental unwellness?

[–]WindLane 75 points76 points  (7 children)

It's more that there was no other choice. You just had to learn how to take it, or it won in some way with you being institutionalized, imprisoned, or dead.

There is some merit to the mental fortitude it takes to be able to work through mental illness, but back then that was the only option for overcoming the problem. Shell shock (now known as PTSD)? Just grit your teeth and live your life anyway. Depression? Just grit your teeth and live your life anyway.

Personally, I like the idea of learning the strengths they had back then and combining them with the counseling and medicine we have now.

[–]ctrl-all-alts 49 points50 points  (3 children)

Don’t forget that if you got mental illness back then, and we’re the breadwinner you default took it out on family or on yourself.

Good times /s


Both really. Those around you are one and the same as yourself when you’re living with and providing for them.

[–]conventionistG 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well it's not like it was ever really one or the other. We certainly have better drugs now and more clinically structured counceling these days, but I don't know where you could objectively say either of those things started in history.

And fortitude, it seems, will always be useful.

[–]EspritFort 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Societies without carpenters and masons won't have bridges and sophisticated dwellings. That doesn't meant they're better off without, they just don't know any better.

[–]WarLordM123 129 points130 points  (18 children)

Aging is as much a "disease" as cancer is. Cancers unrelated to outside damage are part of the effects of aging. Curing cancer and heart disease are just the first steps towards curing aging altogether

[–]Manisbutaworm 37 points38 points  (4 children)

While aging is somewhat programmed/allowed in our genes, cancer is more caused by random processes and grows/forms better under certain circumstances.

There actually is a sort of trade-off between aging and cancer. Cancer is cooperation of a multicellular organism gone wrong. To prevent a couple of cell taking over the great organism there are mechanisms to decrease to potential of regeneration and division of cells. Non stem cells can divide only about 60-80 times and then die of aging, telomeres become shorter every division and once they are finished cells cant divide anymore. Hormones that just elongate telomeres rejuvenate organisms but also gives tumors. In the whole picture its more complex than that as whole system aging can also increase some forms of cancer. But in principle there is a component of aging that has evolved in organisms to prevent cancer in multicellular organisms.

[–]drdestroyer9 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is actually an interesting thing in large animal evolution, as a general rule larger animals live longer and generally have telomerase switched off in their somatic cells whereas smaller animals live less long so having telomerase switched on in their cells isn't as much of an issue

[–]GalaXion24 55 points56 points  (4 children)

It would probably save a massive amount of money if we could prevent aging instead of trying to deal with the symptoms.

[–]Give-me-gainz 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yes you’re right - check out Aubrey De Grey if you haven’t already

[–]Thunderbridge 14 points15 points  (2 children)

Even God utilises planned obsolescence

[–]i_smoke_toenails 39 points40 points  (6 children)

I live in Africa, and I totally want to die of cancer, heart disease or stroke. That means nothing else got me first.

[–]SpeedingTourist 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Keep smoking those toenails and it’s bound to happen 😜

[–]SatanicSurfer 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I thought this was a racist comment referring to a weird stereotype I had never heard of, was glad to notice the op's account name haha

[–]Dingleberry_Blumpkin 35 points36 points  (3 children)

Kind of depressing but pretty much completely true

[–]NowAcceptingBitcoin 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, nature's kill screen

[–]SergejB 8 points9 points  (2 children)

then what about brain diseases like alzheimers or Parkinson's? They seem the third default, together with cancer and cardiovascular, but I don't even see them on the chart.

[–]WhatAGoodDoggy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Would be less bad if cancer only got ya once you'd reached old age.

One of my work colleagues just died yesterday from a brain tumour. A really nice guy, and was only 49. Fucking sucks.

[–]nick_nick_907 219 points220 points  (13 children)

Also: motor vehicles. Stay home, stay fit, don't get depressed (suicide).

Immortality unlocked.

[–]wavegeekman 43 points44 points  (4 children)

don't get depressed (suicide)

People often assume that. But also pain, terminal incurable illnesses.

[–]dalager 50 points51 points  (0 children)

“He died when I was twelve. He also had cancer, but an oncoming train cured him.” - Mark Lawrence, One Word Kill, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39792427-one-word-kill

[–]FeralC 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Those are things that make people depressed

[–]bosque112 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Having experienced both depression and chronic pain at separate times (thankfully not anymore), not exactly. It’s definitely a possibility but not necessarily true in all cases.

[–]backwardsbloom 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Eh, guess it depends on your definition. While I’m sure no one is excited for a prognosis of terminal cancer, some face it with acceptance and would like to go out on their own terms. So it would be suicide, but not, in my opinion, necessarily based in depression.

[–]ImagineAllTheKarma 27 points28 points  (5 children)

I feel like staying in your house all day may lead to depression


Really? What struck me was the terrorist dogs...

[–]Connor4202 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You mean the terrorist lightning;)

[–]Afireonthesnow 38 points39 points  (9 children)

If you think about it though, what else is gonna get you? Cancer is just what we used to call consumption or old age. It's just why people die. Or your pump breaks. Aside from that you got shitty terminal diseases or unnatural causes.

Edit: y'all are right, consumption is TB not cancer!

[–]luxembird 96 points97 points  (0 children)

Consumption was another word for tuberculosis

[–]fedchenkor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What about cars?

[–]jamesianm 2077 points2078 points  (41 children)

Plot twist - all those people are dying of cardiovascular disease because they were so stressed out that they might get eaten by a shark

[–]coadnamedalex 489 points490 points  (31 children)

Plot thickens - Humans are fat.

[–]rangeDSP 357 points358 points  (14 children)

Human thickens

[–]jamesianm 126 points127 points  (8 children)

Humans thicc

[–]Zithero 70 points71 points  (7 children)


[–]otter5 39 points40 points  (5 children)

can i get that with butter?

[–]Skrrpopop 22 points23 points  (3 children)

This post right here officer.

[–]hallese 11 points12 points  (2 children)

Baby, I'm gonna butter your bread.

[–]Angdrambor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I certainly do.

[–]cmetz90 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Thot thiccens

[–]Charakada 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sharks don't like fat humans.

[–]Mikisstuff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's not far, it's 'marbling' for the sharks and lions!

[–]MlSTER_SANDMAN 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And humans are skeletal


But lions are apparently way, war more of a threat. What a fucking way to go... :|

[–]Crispy95 15 points16 points  (1 child)

You know, my key takeaway is that terrorism, as a whole, is marginally more dangerous than domesticated dogs.

I wonder what a budget comparison could do.

[–]pseudopsud 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Every now and then in northern Australia someone suicides by crocodile

Probably better than tiger, worse than lightning

[–]jordan853 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Most likely 100% of the cardiovascular deaths were because of sharks.

With that in mind it makes a lot more sense that sharks kill more than all other forms of death combined.

[–]TheJustBleedGod 576 points577 points  (20 children)

Tsetse flies sound like cunts

[–]Waldfuchs 370 points371 points  (3 children)

I lived in Senegal, West Africa for a couple of years and most of my travel was by bike. Those little bastards were smart enough to slip into my draft and ride along with me. Mid-ride, they’d move to take a bite from my arm. I’d slap them with a vicious fury (while endeavoring to keep my balance) only to watch them buzz away unharmed.

They are absolute cunts.

[–]Derigiberble 22 points23 points  (2 children)

Sounds similar to yellow flies in the southern US. They doggedly follow anything moving and hurt like hell.

The only effective way to deal with them is light color patches covered with adhesive, placed on a dark hat or similar. They will preferentially land on the light color and get caught. My father sticks the patches to the top of the mirrors on his truck when he has to spend time in the woods. If you don't the instant you get out of the vehicle you get swarmed by every single fly that was along the route you drove since they all chased the truck.

[–]littleredkiwi 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Soooo awful!! Such painful bites and through clothes.

[–]pseudopsud 18 points19 points  (1 child)

They carry sleeping sickness, which is how they kill people

[–]Salamandro 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Went to Eastern Africa last year. Looked into my wardrobe to pack up. All clothes either black or dark blue. GG.

[–]down_vote_magnet 1035 points1036 points  (77 children)

I was actually pretty surprised at how many people get killed by snakes. Like not that far off fire or war.

[–]Excludos 500 points501 points  (29 children)

Same. Had always thought that was just one of those overblown fears like sharks and spiders. Nope, turns out danger noodles are actually dangerous.

[–]Reviax- 311 points312 points  (17 children)

Only particularly dangerous in 3rd world countries.

Australia has an exceedingly low fatalities due to snakebites. We have a lot of brown snakes and they can be very angry and bitey. Our low fatalities are due to decent medicine and proper public awareness.

[–]YourAverageDuck 54 points55 points  (1 child)

I call the big one bitey

[–]Bdc2122 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Is there a chance the track could bend?

[–]Thunderbridge 6 points7 points  (1 child)

It'd be interesting to see the stats on snake deaths by country

[–]Reviax- 5 points6 points  (0 children)

World Health Organisation would be your best bet, issue with snakes is the amount of death directly correlates to how far you are away from antivenin. Which tends to make any statistics a bit sketchy and more on the guess side...

[–]kaam00s 2 points3 points  (5 children)

Australia's danger is ultra overrated, the black mamba from Africa is more dangerous than all the snakes from Australia combined, and I'm not only comparing the number of vidtims, that animal is just most dangerous in itself, it is aggressive, huge, and it can fall from trees and hide very well despite its size.

[–]QuantumWarrior 111 points112 points  (5 children)

The figure is very heavily weighted towards poor rural tropical areas, for example in the figures I found almost 60% of all snakebite deaths occur in India, another 20% divided amongst the rest of southeast Asia. About 15% is in sub Saharan Africa, then the last 5% is smattered all over both Americas, Europe, Australia, the rest of Africa, and the Middle East.

In the UK you could probably say that the snakebite drink has a higher death toll than actual snakes, since the last deadly bite was in 1975.


According to this the real danger noodles are mac n cheese.

[–]LordSnow1119 63 points64 points  (2 children)

Honestly. We've been spending all this money fighting wars on terror when the real threat was snakes all along.

[–]nick_nick_907 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Australia lost the emu war, and emus aren't even venomous or particular good at hiding.

I don't think anyone wants to start an interspecies war with snakes. They'll take out humanity's second most popluated country.

[–]willmaster123OC: 9 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Snakes are genuinely a public health crisis in many parts of the world. Arguably just as bad as the deaths are the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people per year who lose limbs from their venom.

I had absolutely zero idea just how much of a threat snakes were until I visited Ethiopia. Villages where people had lost limbs or had loved ones lost from snake bites, people had to be constantly vigilant for snakes and stocking up on antivenom was a major thing for them. I always assumed snakes were a 'threat' but I never realized just how much of a threat they were that they genuinely had an impact on peoples lives.

[–]choppersmash 56 points57 points  (19 children)

My fear of snakes has just doubled.

[–]Reviax- 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Half of them are in India though, if you're in an area which knows snakes are a danger and has a decent medical facility and a way to get you to that facility then the risk drops exponentially.

[–]azgrown84 15 points16 points  (13 children)

Funny enough, I don't see spider deaths on here at all.

[–]Reviax- 19 points20 points  (4 children)

I think the statistic is that there hasn't been a single spider death in Australia since 1970 or something. There was one guy who was hospitalised in 2015 or something for a redback bite but he was administered antivenin and died several days later so it's presumed the spider bite was not the cause of death.

[–]willmaster123OC: 9 11 points12 points  (6 children)

Spider venom can be insanely venomous but for the most part its a much, much smaller amount of venom, and truly deadly spiders are rare.

With snakes, even a snake who's venom isn't that bad can still be really, really horrible because its injecting SUCH a huge amount of venom into you.

[–]azgrown84 25 points26 points  (2 children)

Speaking of both causes of death and war...in the US military, suicide kills more people than actual combat.

[–]FreakinGeese 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well, sure, but that's not really as bad as it sounds. There are so many people in the armed forces, and so few of them are in active combat.

[–]datagnan[S] 380 points381 points  (24 children)

[–]running-tigerOC: 3 197 points198 points  (3 children)

I know this may seem trivial, but I’d like to applaud your choice of software for presenting the data. It’s sleek and interesting without feeling busy.

[–]PM_ME_YOUR_RegEx 56 points57 points  (0 children)

It makes data beautiful!

[–]simonraikallenOC: 1 17 points18 points  (1 child)

Great visualization @datagnan. And an impressive list of sources you have curated. Do you have all this data in a place that others can use? You have clearly done a lot of work to extract and prepare the data, maybe it would be useful to others.

Also, can you share your process of extraction and processing?

[–]ve0m 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm interested also

[–]AndyM_LVB 12 points13 points  (1 child)

"... There are many more causes of death."



Clearly these numbers don't account for the totality of deaths worldwide. So what is the leading cause of death among humans (although I suspect pinpointing the cause would be contentious). Is cardiovascular disease really close to half of the leading causes?

[–]CKent0478 367 points368 points  (24 children)

Dogs and Terrorist were a little close for my liking.

How many dogs are really part of sleepers cells?

[–]UnknownVariation 57 points58 points  (4 children)

This gave me paws.

[–]Temjin810 22 points23 points  (2 children)

It’s a ruff world out there


Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome?

[–]HolycommentMattman 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I'm a terrier-ist!

[–]HBMTWastaken 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The dogs are mostly street living rabies dogs and the terrorism is mostly in third world countries.

[–]Forlos 69 points70 points  (13 children)

I am genuinely shocked by how many people drown 300k people drowning and yet you never ever hear about it on the news

[–]silent_saturn_ 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Flooding in Southeast Asia is the main culprit

[–]chuk2015 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I feel like the shock value of the death is what makes something media-worthy.

Shark deaths are rare but terrifying, cancer kills at least someone we love across a lifetime, the sheer volume of CVD deaths etc

[–]MediocRedditor 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It’s all for shock value. You never hear about the leading causes of death because they’re boring news pieces. All you hear about are the scary causes of death like mass shootings and shark attacks, while statistically you’re much more likely to die in a fall in your residence (showers and stairs kill a lot of people) than to have either of those things happen to you.

Also it would be overwhelming. Imagine if you heard about it on the news every time someone drowned or died in a car accident. They’d have to dedicate a minute or two to just reading the names every day, like roll call. It’s not a story if the same thing happened to 100 other people within a few hours.

[–]MrDownhillRacer 39 points40 points  (8 children)

How would these compare to things like starvation/malnutrition/deaths from not having access to potable water?

[–]chuk2015 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I'd like to see pollution-related deaths as well although they would fall into whatever the actual cause of death is.

Sometimes I wonder if we didn't get so hysterical about nuclear energy we would have a much healthier planet

[–]amwneuarovcsxvo 180 points181 points  (26 children)

Not sure if it's a good or bad thing that suicide beats murder

[–]EAS893 172 points173 points  (3 children)

Considering an individual is in much more control of one than the other, I'd say it's a good thing.

[–]codetrasher 15 points16 points  (0 children)

They can't kill you if you kill yourself first.

[–]ThePurpleDucklingOC: 5 118 points119 points  (5 children)

We clearly have a shark problem!

[–]markdavo 20 points21 points  (0 children)

My first thought was “This would be a great presentation for the Mayor from Jaws to give!”

[–]Iforgot_my_other_pw 12 points13 points  (1 child)

You always hear people say "if it could save just one life...."

[–]Examiner7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

/brain explodes in frustration

[–]mckunekune 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The sharks marketing team really needs to make use of this data and up their game. Re-brand around being so safe to entice people back into the water.

[–]Zithero 119 points120 points  (4 children)

Cancer: "I kill more people than anyone."

Cardiovascular Diseases: "I'm going to end this man's whole career..."

[–]Carburetors_are_evil 35 points36 points  (3 children)

Imagine dying of cancer and then suddenly you get struck by heart attack. Take that cancer!

[–]Examiner7 15 points16 points  (2 children)

From the looks of it that's probably happened to countless people.

[–]slightly_mental 7 points8 points  (0 children)

it actually does. also, most people who die of cardiovascular disease never have any heart attacks.

[–]AlveolarThrill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Indeed. 11% of cancer patients actually die from CVD, it increases the likelihood by a considerable margin. You're more likely to die from cancer rather than CVD if you have a particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat type, such as lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and the like. Source.

Nice excerpt:


[–]Answerisequal42 120 points121 points  (69 children)

And the moral of the story is: Stop getting fat and do exercise because obesity is reaaaaaaally bad for your health.

[–]Vier_Scar 69 points70 points  (49 children)

Even if you were in perfect shape, not obese, took all doctors advice, ate perfectly balanced and optimal meals, you will still die from cancer or cardiovascular disease. It's more like saying, well done on not dying from an accident, from liver damage, from a wild animal attack, from a virus or bacteria. You've lived so healthily that your body eventually fails and you get to die from cancer or cardiovascular disease. Your body is simply imperfect, it cannot maintain itself indefinitely.

[–]WhatAGoodDoggy 18 points19 points  (7 children)

While I agree with everything you said, there's little sense in hurrying your demise by eating shitty food, smoking, not exercising, etc.

[–]Vier_Scar 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Agreed, I am not suggesting a portion, perhaps even a large portion of those that die from cancer or cardiovascular diseases could not have lived longer by being healthier. My point is merely people have to die of something, that default death is cancer/cardiovascular issues. If medicine eventually cures those then we'll die of something else that fails later.

It's good we're dying of cancer, in the past we didn't live long enough for cancer to be such a problem

[–]alpacapicnic 7 points8 points  (9 children)

That’s not true at all. Your body dying of old age is 100% not the same as dying of cardiovascular disease.

[–]Vier_Scar 8 points9 points  (8 children)

Being old does not kill you, something fails.

Most of the time when people talk about dying of old age or passing away in their sleep, it's a cardiovascular issue. Not always, but even people living perfectly by the book will die of something in their body failing. Usually either cancer or a cardiovascular disease/failure like a heart attack.

[–]draypresctOC: 8 75 points76 points  (30 children)

Neat visualization. Could you clarify where this covers? I suspect that there aren't a lot of tiger-related deaths in the US.


Not to downplay the importance of cardiovascular disease, but if the purpose of this graph is to generate support for preventative measures with respect to cardiovascular disease, I think the estimates are a bit biased. When an elderly person dies (especially if they're alone in their home and it's not discovered right away), the cause of death is not usually assigned via a thorough autopsy. In one study, heart disease was assigned to half of the deaths where a physician panel could not (upon review of the data) assign any specific cause. Given that 40% of the countries over various periods don't have well-certified causes for the vast majority of their deaths (see p. 1157-116132152-9.pdf)), this could mean that there's substantial inflation of the 'cardiovascular' cause.

I suspect the proportion of deaths due to preventable cardiovascular disease (as opposed to systemic organ failure that eventually results in heart failure) would be much smaller than displayed here.


[–]Onequestion0110 65 points66 points  (8 children)

Similarly, I've always felt like a disease-related death could simply be called 'old age' after a certain point. My 98-year-old grandmother died of heart failure. But the heart failure happened while she was suffering from a case of flu.

But frankly I think it's misleading to say she died of heart failure or the flu - she died of old age.

[–]dcgrey 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Agree too. Cardiovascular disease and cancer could reasonably often be described as symptoms of aging. If life expectancy through human history had always been 70+ years, our doctors would be saying "What continues to baffle us is why old-age diseases occasionally appear in youth."

[–]Onequestion0110 16 points17 points  (0 children)

There’s a big difference, imho, between a heart attack suffered by an otherwise-healthy 30 year old, a morbidly obese 30 year old who eats 2k calories a meal, and an otherwise healthy 90 year old.

Lumping all three together has always seemed iffy to me.

[–]draypresctOC: 8 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I agree.

As a side note: I once worked on a study of a specific chronic disease where doctors were asked to assign a primary cause of death for each patient. Through a miscommunication of the protocol, more than one doctor provided the primary cause of death for each patient for the first several months. There was substantial disagreement in the data, but when doctors were asked to review the discrepant results their usual call was "well, neither one is wrong." Many of the cases were much like your grandmother.

[–]MrReginaldAwesome 6 points7 points  (3 children)

That's actually a terrible idea, you need to have a good idea of what is causing death of you want to prevent it. There are treatments for heart failure and the flu, it's harder to write a prescription that prevents old age.

[–]Jestdrum 13 points14 points  (0 children)

There's not much that can be done for heart failure and the flu at that point, and we need more funding for research into treating aging

[–]alanjcastonguay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m going to write you a prescription that prevents old age. To get it filled you’ll have to find 7 ancient treasures with a plucky sidekick.

[–]arachnidtree 6 points7 points  (4 children)

all deaths are 'lack of oxygen to brain". someone should do something about that.

[–]draypresctOC: 8 14 points15 points  (3 children)

IDK - would death by headshot be considered 'too much oxygen to the brain'?

[–]Excludos 7 points8 points  (0 children)

That's an acute led poisoning.

[–]barrtender 4 points5 points  (4 children)

I've always been curious if there's a chart like this but weights each death by (Life expectancy - age of death). The idea being that an auto accident killing an otherwise healthy 30 year old loses 60 years, compared to someone on their death bed from cancer getting a heart attack losing maybe a few months. The causes that bubble up from that would be the ones I'd be most interesting in preventing.

[–]draypresctOC: 8 2 points3 points  (3 children)

I think you might like a chart that uses quality-adjusted life-years. I’ve seen it used for specific conditions , but not, as you suggest, a comparison across conditions.

[–]ACorania 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think the better term in those cases would be to say they died of shock. Almost every cause of death can be attributed to shock in some form or another. The Shark bit off your leg, you bled out and died from hypovolemic shock (not enough blood in the container to continue perfusion).

It's still just a catch all, but it removes the ones that are just not good answers for into a seperate bucket then you can place the ones we do know into specific buckets. So someone having a heart attack and dying is cardogenic shock, sure, but we can attribute that shock to a cause.

[–]datagnan[S] 2 points3 points  (3 children)

True! But all the other numbers include all age groups, too

[–]draypresctOC: 8 6 points7 points  (2 children)

I think I'm missing your point, sorry.

For example, I don't think elderly people dying of old age are misdiagnosed with 'death due to tiger attack' very often...:)

[–]Bryant4751 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yeah, but you can still prevent almost all cardiovascular disease with nutrition and lifestyle. People are dying earlier and earlier of CVD.

[–]Digitdog 32 points33 points  (1 child)

The whole time this graphic is running, my internal monolouge was saying, "Fuck bees. No wait... Fuck hippos. No wait... Fuck snakes. No wait... Fuck drowning. No wait... " and so on until the very end.

[–]Brolafsky 51 points52 points  (5 children)

I'm just gonna remind ya'll to eat more pumpkin seeds and nuts if you're able to.

Fiber good.

Junk food bad.

[–]GiniThePooh 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Within moderation though! Nuts have a ton of calories, a small bowl of peanuts has about the same amount of calories as a cheeseburger would. So don’t go nuts with the nuts.

[–]LoXos1 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Also, it is November

[–]HaphazardlyOrganized 25 points26 points  (2 children)

With the music and overall production quality I found myself waiting for David Attenborough to come one and be like: "And so, as you can see, it is the heart that continues to fail us"

[–]datagnan[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Hahaha :D


Song name?

[–]DlatrexOC: 2 16 points17 points  (2 children)

I do like this graph. Lovely animation and great selection of numbers. Some of the others may have commented on this, but I’ll chime in here as well. My degree is in Epidemiology, and since I have years of working in exotic animal handling as well it is worth remembering that these are comparing total mortality numbers (period incidence).

We need to be a little careful when comparing one to the other because the exposures for each are not going to be the same: for example in urban areas what amount of time some is likely to spend around dogs vs snakes vs sharks is going to be quite different. To say “you are more likely to be killed by X” can certainly be influenced by the context and settings :)

[–]nickallanj 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Early on: Interesting how the higher it gets, the more abstract and interpersonal the cause.

Later: M O S Q U I T O E S

[–]Tethros 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Wait, snakes kill almost as many people as war? I can't believe the DoD hasn't invested in war snakes yet.

[–]RDMvb6 27 points28 points  (10 children)

What do the consider to be "death by cardiovascular disease"? Like if an 80 year old person dies from a heart attack, I would consider that to be natural causes since no body can last forever. If a 40 year old drops over from a heart attack, probably something went wrong. Is there a certain cutoff? I've heard the saying "Cancer kills 100% of people that heart disease or accidents doesn't kill first". Basically, if you live long enough for your heart to give out, you successfully avoided everything else that wanted to kill you and should consider that a full life.

[–]Ha55aN1337 16 points17 points  (4 children)

I consider both cancer and heart attack a natural cause of death after 80. You have to die of fucking something?

[–]luleigas 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You have to die of fucking something?

A coconut?

[–]Carburetors_are_evil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fucking watch me

[–]actionbandit 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah it would be nice to have the same stats for leading causes of death for people under 70 or something like that

[–]randalthor23 9 points10 points  (2 children)

I'd say the United States response to terrorism hasn't been pre-portional compared to it's focus on stopping deaths from dogs.

[–]Policy-Over-Party 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't give them any ideas.

[–]Maicocpa 8 points9 points  (10 children)

Death from alcohol seems low. Does that include those who die from the long-term effects of alcoholism? I doubt it does. I suspect it only includes those who die of alcohol overdoses. According to the World Health Organization it's more like 3 million annual deaths related to alcohol use.

[–]DuneChild 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Most are probably lumped in with car accidents and cancer.

[–]Ervaloss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Alcohol also exacerbates cardiovascular problems. And depression so suicide as well.

[–]Carburetors_are_evil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also deaths caused indirectly by alcohol. Choking on your vomit, falling down the stairs etc.

[–]GiraffeandZebra 6 points7 points  (1 child)

I wonder what this would look like if you were able to adjust for exposure. Everyone is susceptible to cancer and cardiovascular disease, but how many people are exposed to hippos?

[–]Spartan05089234 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Snakes and mosquitos really carrying it for the whole animal category. Snakes especially, cuz mosquitos using performance enhancing viruses.

[–]what_comes_after_q 10 points11 points  (2 children)

Yeah, big problem here is preventable versus non preventable deaths and then also accessibility. If you live long enough, you will eventually die from cancer. That is just a given and is true no matter where on earth you live. In fact, many old people develop cancer at some point, but it's not even worth treating since something will kill them beforehand. Heart disease is somewhat similar. Many people will get it because the heart changes over time. We like to think it's entirely preventable, but it's not really. Many people will get it living relatively normal, relatively otherwise healthy lives just due to family genetics. Compare that to being killed by hippos. Well, first it's certainly localized to only small pockets of the world, and even then, if you live near hippos, people can be careful about avoiding where they reside. With enough caution, it's preventable if challenging. Cancer and heart disease? Not so much.

[–]GiniThePooh 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You just reminded me that my great grandma developed skin cancer when she was 90, got radiation treatment and then it came back when she was like 98, but then it was pneumonia what took her a bit after her 100th birthday. Little old lady was tough!

[–]thunderousqueef 11 points12 points  (8 children)

Subtle reminder that although Nicotine doesn’t directly cause cancer, Nicotine does directly contribute to the development of Cardiovascular disease. Just because your e-cigarette doesn’t contain tobacco doesn’t mean you’re safe.

[–]dlfoster311 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Would cardiovascular disease be the main cause of "old age" deaths? Asking for a friend who is too lazy to Google.

[–]bas_e_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Splitting drugs and alcohol isnt really fair... this gives the impression that drugs are really really bad yet there are 100s or 1000s kinds of drugs and they all have only a few deaths.. like mdma would have only 10(made up number) which aces it at the bottom of the list and heroin had 500 which puts it a bit lowe on the list etc etc. Why not count all animals together with the label animals and now animals are the top cause of death because all counted together is a very large number.

[–]posting_drunk_naked 2 points3 points  (0 children)

staring nervously at my Chihuahuas, crack pipe and vodka laying on the couch next to me

So which one of you is it gonna be?

[–]shuyun99 4 points5 points  (1 child)

This is a fantastic visualization that really puts things in context. I always love the stat that you are more likely to die by vending machine accident than shark attack. Did you not want to wondering why you didn’t add more of the most common causes of death worldwide because you mostly wanted to focus on putting uncommon (but feared) causes of death in context with common ones? In case you wanted the WHO top ten list: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death.

[–]azgrown84 16 points17 points  (15 children)

What I find most interesting about this is how the media treats this information. As much coverage as mass shootings get and as anti-gun as the media is, you'd think they'd give it even a quarter of the coverage of the real killer, obesity and it's consequences. But you flip on any 24hr news channel and it's "GUNS ARE EVIL!!!", and nary a peep about heart disease and cancer. Quite eye-opening.

[–]DuneChild 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Not everyone likes guns, so they’re an easy target for limits and bans. Everyone likes sweets and fatty foods, so you’d have a tough time getting a limit or ban on them through the court of public opinion.

Kinda like how people that want to ban flavored vapes and cigarettes would never call for a ban on flavored alcoholic beverages. Less than a quarter of Americans use tobacco/nicotine, but most Americans use alcohol.

[–]VDubDJ 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Because it’s a lot easier to get Johnny Public up in arms over scary people with guns than convincing them to stop eating McDonald’s and maybe have a jog once in a while.

[–]TheLightoftheWest 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What I find most typical, is the real #1 cause is never mainstreamed on crap like this, making its gravity not even register with most people.

[–]Celaphais 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We need bigger numbers across the boards if we want to mitigate overpopulation.

Come on people step up your game! Take one for the team!

[–]jsakia 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Awesome graph.

Despite the results, there are more cancer and CNS trials ongoing and ending every month than for cardiovascular disease. This is the effect of a very high bar in primary endpoints for cardiovascular disease. It is exacerbated by having to have enormous numbers of participants (25,000) in these (phase3) trials to reach significance above the standard of care. Meanwhile, a cancer drug might be seen as an improvement if life is extended for 3 months in a 10-50 patient cohort. I am not sure why CNS clinical research is so prevalent, but there are now consistently higher number of CNS trials every month.

[–]GayKonner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, what is this based off? Is this just per one country, or is this (presumably) the entire human population? I'd really like to dig into this. Not only was it immensely powerful to see how huge cancer and cardiovascular diseases were in to comparison to ... every other way to die - but it was kind of mind shattering to see that suicides kill more than war and homicide. I've seen my fair share of attempts, and even then, seeing this comparison is kind of mind shattering.

[–]derfopps 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bear in mind though: Cardiovascular Diseases is often the reason an MD will write in case she/he is lazy for the necropsy. Reports (German) suggest more than 90% of death certificates in Germany are incorrect – with Cardiovascular Diseases occuring much more rarely than statistics suggest.

[–]CambridgeRunner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We should bomb the terrorists!

No, we should bomb snakes!


Oh, wait, we shouldn't bomb anyone...

[–]BirdmanMBirdman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

TIL snakes are actually a huge cause of death. I never would have thought they'd be right up around "fire".