How Will Leading Causes of Death Change in the Future?

Learn how future causes of death may be different for our children and grandchildren
Death causes have changed drastically since the 1800’s; how will they change 50 to 100 years from now? Listen to learn the most likely causes of death in the future and why.

In This Episode:
In the first segment Charlie explores a new source of protein and has our recipe of the week. In the 2nd segment Marianne talks about how future causes of death may be different for our children and grandchildren; and in our third segment Charlie takes us to the Twilight Zone.

• 02:57 – Recipe of the Week: Exploring alternative protein sources and cricket flour pancakes
• 06:59 – What leading causes of death may look like in the future
• 30:40 – Twilight Zone: The Midnight Sun (Episode 75)
• 36:52 – Outro

Transcript

How-will-leading-causes-of-death-change-in-the-future

This podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 46 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every-person viewpoint to our podcast. We are both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you will be to make difficult decisions in a crisis.

Welcome to this week's show. Please relax, get yourself some sweet tea and a cupcake, and thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me as we talk about what will likely be the cause of death in the future. Like the BBC, we see our shows offering entertainment enlightenment and education and divide it into three halves to address each of these goals.

Our main topic is in the second half, so please feel free to fast forward to that chat free zone if you want to. In the first half, Charlie explores a new source of protein and has our recipe of the week. In the second half, I'm going to talk about how future causes of death may be different for our children and grandchildren.

And in our third half, Charlie takes us to the Twilight Zone. Marianne, do you have a favorite Twilight Zone episode? The one that frightened the bejeebers out of me as a child was when the wall goes soft and the kid goes into that other world and then maybe he doesn't get out. You know, like there's he's exploring in there and I don't know if it's a sibling kind of tries to help get him out and the wall starts to close up because my bed as a kid was right next to the wall and I just had a very active imagination.

I could just see that wall opening up and swallowing me and it scared me. Good. I can't picture, but that does sound familiar.

Mine is the one with, oh, time enough to read with Burgess Meredith. Oh, yeah, that's great. Oh my God.

The world just is gone. He's the last one left. He's always been, you know, henpecked because he always loved to read and now he has time enough to read, collects all these books from the library, and he breaks his glasses.

Ah, yeah, and I love irony. So in our first half, we have read about the carbon effect from cows and it has been suggested that we should get our protein from other sources to help save our planet. When cows break wind, they produce tons of methane.

Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This is not good for our climate. Conventional herding practices also destroy soil quality, create runoff waste, use excessive resources, and contribute to the problem of antibiotic resistance.

Livestock, amazingly enough, account for 50 to 80 percent of worldwide antibiotic usage. There is now an environmentally friendly protein available in the form of cricket powder. Yes, hold your applause, please.

All right, stay with me. Like a cricket, cricket powder is a great source of protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and fatty acids. But unlike a cricket, cricket flour looks nothing like an insect.

Still, 100 percent cricket powder is basically a whole food. All nutrients are preserved and you don't need to work for your crickets. Thanks to large-scale cricket farming and distribution, you can have cricket products delivered straight to your door.

Cricket flour, also known as cricket powder, is a protein-rich powder made from, yes, you guessed it, crickets. It is made by grounding roasted crickets into a fine powder. Cricket flour is composed mainly of protein rather than starches and dietary fiber, which makes it different from true flours made from grains.

The crickets used to make cricket flour are typically farmed specifically for human consumption. Cricket flour contains six grams protein per serving to help you meet your daily protein requirements. Crickets are more than just protein.

They're stocked with fiber, fatty acids, and micronutrients too. People have been eating crickets for ages. They're a staple of the ancestral diet.

Cricket flour pancakes is our recipe of the week and maybe the future of food. A sustainable choice for protein lovers and baking lovers alike. Take a step into the future with this recipe.

Bon Appetit! Marianne, do you recommend cricket flour? Does anybody need to know anything about cricket flour? Well, you can get it online. I haven't looked to see if it's on Amazon or not. It's recommended that you don't give it to somebody and then later tell them that it's crickets in case they have some sort of allergy to the cricket shell or something.

People are allergic to crickets? I don't know. I've read that and so if it's on the internet, you know it's true. Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for cricket flour pancakes and additional resources for this program.

Everyone Dies is offered at no cost but is not free to produce. Please contribute what you can. Your tax-deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism so that we can remain accessible to everyone.

You can also donate at www.everyonedies.org. That's every, the number one, dies.org or at our website on Patreon, www.patreon.com and search for Everyone Dies. Marianne? Thanks, Charlie. In the early 1800s, one of the main causes of death in the United States was cholera, otherwise known as bacterial diarrhea.

Also common were tuberculosis, known as consumption, and infectious diseases such as typhoid fever, scarlet fever, croup, and diphtheria. In 1922, 100 years later, the top causes of death were diseases of the heart, all forms of pneumonia, and this was, remember, following their Spanish flu, tuberculosis, cerebral hemorrhage, kidney disease, cancer, congenital malformations, and diseases of early infancy, as well as giving birth, automobile accidents, railroad accidents, and accidental falls. And the most recent data for causes of death in the United States for us to look at for 2024 comes from 2022.

And the top 10 causes of death are diseases of the heart. Number two is cancer, accidents. Number four is COVID-19, stroke, chronic respiratory diseases.

Number seven is Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis is number 10. So if you were going to ponder what the causes of death would be 50 or even 100 years from now, what do you think they would be? Well, I spent some time with my Ouija board and crystal ball this weekend, and here's what I think will be the top 10 causes of death in the future. And these are not in any particular order, so I'm just going to start with climate-related deaths.

The World Economic Forum published in January of 2024 warns that in 2050, climate change may cause an additional 14.5 million deaths and 12.5 trillion in economic losses worldwide. Climate-driven event categories of negative health impacts are floods, droughts, heat waves, tropical storms, wildfires, and rising sea levels. So the things that I think are going to really impact cause of death is air pollution.

Many of the causes of death in the 1800s and 1900s were related to sanitation and dirty water. Air quality is projected to continue to deteriorate worldwide according to the World Health Organization. The number of premature deaths caused by exposure to particulate matter from air pollution is projected to more than double worldwide, from the current figure of just over 1 million to nearly 3.6 million per year in 2050, with most of the deaths occurring in China and India.

Without any policy change, world energy demand in 2050 will be 80% higher than it is now, and we would still be 85% reliant on fossil fuel-based energy. This in turn could lead to a 50% increase in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in air pollution globally. More pollution means more asthma attacks, and pollution has also been linked to heart and lung disease as well as cognitive problems.

And those last three are all on the current list of causes of death. Another consideration is heat stress deaths, and despite personal opinion regarding global changes, the facts are the earth is getting hotter, and let's assume that that continues into the future. Currently, most people who die from heat stress die in their homes and without air conditioning, because indoor temperatures can be much higher than outside, especially during the night.

In a study reported about heat stress deaths in New York City, researchers documented that 81% had no air conditioning, and the rest had air conditioning that either was not working or not in use. 28% of those who died had an electric fan present and on, indicating that only using an electric fan without an air conditioning cannot always prevent deaths during excessive heat for people who are at the highest heat risk. We have to take into account also whether the power grid can support running air conditioning through major heat waves as well as earlier in the spring and later in the fall, if there are fewer fluctuations in temperatures into the cooler ranges.

So what is this prediction based on? The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report states that for today's children who are alive in the year 2100, there are going to be four times more climate extremes than they have now, even with only a few more of a tenth of a degree of warming over today's heat. But if temperatures increase nearly two more degrees Celsius from now, or 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit, they would feel five times the floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves. Five times, Charlie.

Since 1999, people age 65 and older have had several times more likely to die from heat-related cardiovascular disease than the general population, while non-Hispanic blacks generally have had higher than average rates. While dramatic increases in heat-related deaths are closely associated with the occurrence of hot temperature and heat waves, these deaths may not be reported as heat-related on death certificates. Therefore, the number of heat-related deaths may actually be higher than what we know.

When people are exposed to extreme heat, they can have potentially deadly illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Hot temperatures can also contribute to deaths from heart attacks, strokes, and other forms of cardiovascular disease. Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States, even though most heat-related deaths are preventable through outreach and intervention.

The population of adults age 65 and older, which is expected to continue to grow, has a higher than average risk of heat-related deaths. Children are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illness and death because their bodies are less able to adapt to heat than adults, and they must rely on others to help keep them safe. People with certain diseases such as heart and respiratory breathing illnesses are especially vulnerable to excessive heat exposure.

Also, those who are economically disadvantaged are at risk. Data suggests a higher risk among non-Hispanic Blacks. So, my next category is cancer.

Cancer continues to climb up the list of the top 10 causes of death, and in the next 50 years, will make it to number one. By gender, prostate, lung, and colorectal cancers account for an estimated 48% of all cancers diagnosed in men in 2024. For women, the three most common causes are breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, and they will account for an estimated 51% of all new cancer diagnoses this year.

A study by Rahab estimates increases in melanoma incidence, pancreatic cancer deaths, and liver cancer deaths, and decreases in prostate cancer diagnoses and breast cancer deaths in the future. Although rates of smoking, a major cause of cancer has declined, the rates of those risk factors such as obesity have increased in the United States. Also, the U.S. population is aging and cancer rates increase with age.

What's this prediction based on? Well, an American Cancer Society report published in 2024 predicts that by 2050, the number of people with cancer could rise 77% to 35 million people. Third on my list is strokes. Currently, stroke is number five on the top 10 list, but once COVID falls off the list and we continue to resist health lifestyle choices, it's going to move on up.

Statistical predictors indicate that the number of strokes worldwide will increase 50% by 2050, with a rapid rise among adults younger than 55. And what is this prediction based on? In most cases, poor dietary and lifestyle choices increase a person's stroke risk. A significant risk comes from unmanaged high blood pressure.

And then there is rising diabetes and obesity, which are also factors that can cause or contribute to strokes. Worsening environment and air quality issues, including pollution and climate stressors, also contribute to the increase in stroke prevalence. Unequally distributed healthcare resources, a lack of prevention programs, increase in strokes after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the thought that COVID may be considered a risk factor for stroke, all create a perfect storm for an increase in strokes.

The worldwide projected costs of stroke treatments and lost income will rise from $891 billion per year in 2017 to up to $2.31 trillion by 2050. And with all these trillion dollar costs, I'm just, first off, I don't know what a trillion is. I mean, I can't, I know what it is, but I can't conceive of it.

And where are all these trillions going to come from? Next on my list is antimicrobial resistance. Yes, everything old is new again. Remember what I said about dying from cholera in the 1800s? Well, there's been the development of strains of drug resistant bacteria that are immune to all known antibiotics, known as superbugs.

By 2050, the United Nations estimates that up to 10 million deaths could be caused by superbugs and associated forms of antimicrobial resistance, matching the annual global death toll of cancer. Antimicrobials are drugs like antibiotics, antivirals, antiparasitics, antifungals, and are critical to the health of humans and livestock, aquaculture, and the crops of the global food chain. Their discovery in 1928 led to a revolution in medicine that brought about a new era of food security and health.

Superbug development includes both problems of excessive and inappropriate use of antibiotics. So, antimicrobial resistance is a natural process that happens over time through genetic changes in the bugs. Its rise and spread are increased by human activity, mainly in the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials to treat, prevent, or control infections in humans, animals, and plants.

So, regarding antibiotic use, the primary cause of antibiotic resistance is overuse of antibiotics. When we use antibiotics, some bacteria die, but resistant bacteria can survive and multiply, especially when, if you're given a eight or ten day cycle and you start feeling better at day five and you stop taking your antibiotic, this sets up this kind of dynamic. The more antibiotics we use, the greater the chances that bacteria will become resistant to them.

Now, things like global travel and movement can also spread these around. Modern travel allows antimicrobial resistant germs to spread easily. With over 1 billion people on the move globally, infection can occur during travel and then be transmitted back to communities.

This movement enables the rapid spread of resistance. Now, these can also go from person to person transmission. Antimicrobial resistant germs can spread through everyday activities like handshaking, exercising, attending school.

So, wash your hands. Wash your hands and sneeze into your arm. Don't sneeze into the air.

I could just do a whole show about people sneezing. Healthcare facilities. Resistance can spread within healthcare facilities due to antibiotic and antifungal use.

Inadequate infection prevention control practices contribute to this problem. And people not washing their hands. And of course, within the community.

Germs, including resistance ones, circulate within communities through common activities. Lack of proper hand hygiene and transmission between people, animals, and food play a role. Community associated infections can affect healthy individuals who haven't recently interacted with healthcare.

The CDC has warned doctors and patients for decades about the dangers of over-prescribing drugs. But unnecessary antibiotic use is still a continuing epidemic. Superbug methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or you probably have heard MRSA.

And you know that it's bad. And you know that, you know, maybe your mom or grandma got it while they were in the hospital. But that's what that stands for.

So, MRSA evolved to form resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, such as penicillin. So, when you say, well, we had penicillin, why doesn't that work? It doesn't work because the bugs figured out how penicillin worked and evolved so that it wouldn't work anymore. People are dying from common previously treatable infections because the bacteria that causes them have become resistant to treatment.

Antimicrobial resistance can lead to deaths in a few ways. Both deaths are caused by lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia, and the development of new strains of pneumonia. Bloodstream infections, which can lead to sepsis.

Urinary tract infections, which won't go away because the drugs aren't working. And wound infections that become gangrenous because the drugs aren't working. MRSA is particularly deadly, and E. coli and other bacteria are also linked to high levels of drug resistance.

So, what is this prediction based on? Antimicrobial resistance, it's listed in the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 threats to global health. And its impacts are already taking a significant toll on the health of humans, animals, plants, and economies. By 2050, 10 million people could die every year to antimicrobial resistance unless a global response to the problem is developed.

I remember when I was working in the hospital, I had a young guy who was in the ICU and he had gotten septic and none of the antibiotics were working. And that man went from talking to me, being able to talk, to dead in two hours. And I was in a way in awe that in this day and age, people could get septic and die and we could do nothing to stop it.

It was just like, I mean, I knew how it happened, I knew why it happened, but I was still in awe that it did happen. Their overuse in pharmaceutical, agriculture, and healthcare sectors and resulting spillover into the environment is threatening to undermine their effectiveness. As human-made antimicrobials spill into rivers and soil and other natural reservoirs, bacteria learn to resist treatments to which they were previously vulnerable.

Both global warming and the increased pollution of rivers, lakes, and other waterways create conducive environments for drug-resistant pathogens to breed and spread. As temperatures increase around the globe, the development of resistant bacteria increases. In addition, extreme weather events like floods lead to the mixing of these bugs from various sources, intensifying the spread of resistant bacteria in places that they did not previously exist.

Well, I know that this was a real happy kind of podcast. And you know, these predictions don't have to come true. Many of the risk factors for predicting causes of death can be modified.

For example, more than half of cancer deaths worldwide are potentially preventable. Eliminating smoking could prevent 25% of cancer deaths. Staying at a healthy weight is vital, and drug developments like ozympa are game-changing.

Strokes are highly preventable. Lifestyle factors such as a healthy diet, regular physical activity, and stopping smoking can reduce stroke risk, as well as regular monitoring for high blood pressure. Environmentally, change can happen when we begin to understand that the biggest reason we are not making full use of new technology is the political power of the fossil fuel industry.

Renewable energy in the form of solar and wind power is the cheapest way to generate electricity around the planet. Adoption of air source heat pumps, induction cooktops, and LED light bulbs could greatly decrease our energy use. Plant trees because they help keep the air clean and the air cool.

Plant flowers to make your soul happy and keep the bees alive. Global action is needed to reduce emissions and safeguard health from multi-prolonged negative effects and of climate change globally. Healthcare disparities come in all form.

Where we live, play, work, and get our healthcare are all factors. Understanding aspects of communities that have one or more socio-demographic characteristics as common, ranging from geography, race, and ethnicity to environment, is essential to identifying strategies to improve health. Our kids, our grandkids don't have to have these increased health issues, but honestly, those changes need to start now.

Any thoughts, Charles? Well, aren't you a bundle of fun facts. Yeah. Oh, jinkies.

Um, all right. So, well, okay, look, and I know that what you were saying that, you know, a lot of this stuff winds up in the water system and, you know, everywhere from streams to the oceans, water supplies. I mean, how could they be properly disposed of? Well, the question is, do they need to be used in the first place? Oh, yeah.

Well, obviously, no. But, you know, Marianne, there's no profit in outreach and interventions. And... Well, it'll continue to happen unless we make different choices at the voting booth, if we make choose less red meat, if we choose to manage our smoking addiction.

You know, there's things that are within our control. I think it's easy, maybe, to be fatalistic about it and say, well, there's nothing I can do about this. Well, you are master of your own fate.

You can raise your children, you know, show them a parent that exercises and doesn't smoke, make sure that you're limiting screen time or not even buying devices where the kids just are sitting around all the time. I mean, there are things that we do have control of and waiting until a child is in their teens is way too late to make those kinds of rules. You got to make them when at the very, very beginning.

And I know that that's really hard to do in that raising kids is totally exhausting and, you know, having them make good choices and learn how to make good choices is really hard. I'm not saying any of it is easy, but if we're going to have kids, those are things that we need that we need to do is to think about not only their current health, but their future health and their health beyond the point when we're even still alive. And kids learn, kids do and learn what they see us do.

And so that means that we need to take care of ourselves too. And it's, and like I said, make, you know, choices at the voting booth for people who are going to, you know, support like the Paris Accord or the things that will help make the future healthier. So do what you, do what you have control over.

You have control over you. That's it. Well said.

In our third half, the opening narration from Rod Serling for episode 75 of the Twilight Zone called The Midnight Sun was first shown in November of 1961. And this is how it opened. The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is doomed because the people you've just seen have been handed a death sentence.

One month ago, the earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man's little devices to stir up the air are no longer luxuries. They happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival.

The time is five minutes to 12 midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City.

And this is the eve of the end. Because even at midnight, it's high noon, the hottest day in history. And you're about to spend it in the Twilight Zone.

So the plot of The Midnight Sun is this. Earth's orbit has been disturbed, causing the planet to slowly fall into the sun. A prolific artist, Norma, and her landlady, Mrs. Bronson, are the last residents in their New York apartment building.

Their former neighbors have either moved north to seek a cooler climate or they have already perished from the extremely high temperatures. At 20 minutes to midnight, it is 110 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny as high noon. Norma and Mrs. Bronson try to support each other as they watch life as they know it erode around them.

The streets are deserted. Water usage is limited to an hour a day and their electricity is gradually being turned off. Food and water are scarce and the sea has dried up.

A radio presenter announces that the police have been moved out of the city and that citizens must defend themselves against looters, then angrily goes off script before being forcibly taken off the air. As the temperature rises to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the two women grow weaker. Norma burns her hand on a windowsill.

Mrs. Bronson becomes psychologically unstable, beseeching Norma to paint a picture of a cool subject rather than Norma's usual paintings of the sun and burning cities. A looter enters the building through the roof, which Mrs. Bronson neglected to lock. They hide in Norma's apartment.

The looter calls from outside, demanding entry. Norma threatens him with a revolver and they hear him walk away. Against Norma's pleas, Mrs. Bronson unlocks the door and the stranger forces his way in, grabs a revolver and drinks their water.

He calms down after seeing their distress and begs for their forgiveness, claiming that he is an honest man driven insane by the heat. He throws away the revolver and describes the recent death of his wife and newborn child. He begs for forgiveness until Norma acknowledges him.

He then leaves the building. In an attempt to console Mrs. Bronson, Norma shows her an oil painting of a waterfall cascading into a lush pond. Mrs. Bronson deliriously claims that she can feel the coolness and splashes in the imaginary waters before dying from heat stroke.

Norma sits in shock as the thermometer surges past 130 degrees Fahrenheit, 54 degrees Celsius, and shatters. The paint on the paintings begins to melt. She screams and collapses.

The scene then cuts to the same apartment at night with heavy snow outside the windows. The thermometer reads negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Norma, who has been bedridden with a high fever, is being cared for by a doctor and Mrs. Bronson.

The earth moving closer to the sun is revealed to be only a fever dream, while in reality the earth is moving away from the sun and the world's inhabitants are actually freezing to death. Norma tells Mrs. Bronson about her nightmare, adding, isn't it wonderful to have darkness and coolness? Mrs. Bronson's face stiffens in dread and she replies, yes my dear, it's wonderful. The episode substitutes a kink in the earth's orbit, an analog to what we currently call the greenhouse effect for an atomic holocaust.

Our current weather patterns indicate that this story could in fact be our future. The poles of fear, the extremes of how the earth might conceivably be doomed, minor exercise in the care and feeding of a nightmare respectfully submitted by all the thermometer watchers in the twilight zone. I remember this episode, Marianne.

I do too. And the picture, the picture melts, do you remember that? You know, and there were several similar episodes, you know, people trying to escape the earth, and I remember this one where the scientists, yeah, the earth is climate change and wars, and this group of scientists are trying to basically hijack a rocket to get away from all that sort of stuff. They succeed, their families are hijacking the rocket, and a little kid asks, so daddy, where are we going? Well, it's this place, it's the third planet from the sun, there they call it earth.

So with that, that's this week's episode, folks. Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening. This is Charlie Navarette, and from Lois Long, columnist for the New Yorker magazine from the 1920s to the 1960s, tomorrow we may die, so let's get drunk and make love.

Ah, and I'm Marianne Matzo, and we'll see you next week. Remember, every day is a gift. This podcast does not provide medical advice.

All discussion on this podcast, such as treatments, dosages, outcomes, charts, patient profiles, advice, messages, and any other discussion are for informational purposes only, and are not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment. Always seek the advice of your primary care practitioner or other qualified health providers with any questions that you may have regarding your health. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from this podcast.

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