How long have you got to live?
By Alice Fordham
A new lifestyle questionnaire for the over-sixties could offer clues about the time they have left
EVERYONE knows that the Grim Reaper is approaching, but by answering 12 easy questions, you can now find out how fast.
American scientists have developed a test for over-50s designed to answer the question: will I still be alive in four years? Risk factors including age, gender and disease are analysed, and the likelihood of imminent death calculated with, the scientists claim, 81 per cent accuracy.
The quiz, funded by the US National Institute on Ageing, awards points for every answer that indicates age or weakness. The greater the total score, the more likely the respondent is to die within four years.
You accumulate two points just for being male, and further points for being over 60 or having a low body mass index. Two points are added for smoking and for infirmities such as cancer and diabetes.
Once your score reaches 14 points, the chance of dying in the next four years rises to 64 per cent.
“It’s a very natural human question of ‘What’s going to happen to me’?” said Dr Sei Lee, of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, who helped devise the quiz. “We also know that doctors are very cautious about giving prognostic information because they don’t want to be wrong.”
However, the worried middle-aged have been urged not to panic after taking the test at home.
Dr Kenneth Covinsky, another co-author, noted that a doctor could help to put a high score into perspective and suggest mitigating action, such as giving up smoking. Detractors have said that the test is not comprehensive enough.
Dr Donald Jurivich, 52, geriatrics chief at the University of Illinois, criticised the test for ignoring family history. His answers gave him a low score, but he remains uneasy because both of his parents died prematurely.
Obesity is another factor which seems to have been overlooked. Dr George Lange, 57, is significantly overweight, but found his score was surprisingly healthy. Neither blood pressure, nor cholesterol level, had been taken into account.
Dr Lee countered by saying that in fact low weight is a greater sign of risk in the elderly, as it often indicates illness, while a family tendency to premature death is less relevant among the over-50s.
The study, published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, followed 11,701 Americans from 1998 to reach its conclusions.
The test’s authors claim that it is designed to “try to help doctors and families get a firmer sense for what the future may hold”.
However, some people are cynical about the test’s likely uses. Dr Anne Moloney, a British geriatrician, said: “I’d be cautious about such tests if they were going to be used as a way of rationing resources in public healthcare.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 08,00.html
