Will you die in the next five years? This online test reckons it can predict the answer
They say there are only two certainties in life – and now you can (rather creepily) work out the likelihood of one of them happening in the next five years, thanks to a new online questionnaire which claims to predict your chance of death with 80 per cent accuracy.
The Ubble Longevity Explorer, created by UK charity Sense About Science, asks you 13 questions about your lifestyle and presents you with a percentage risk of death.
Many of the determining factors are unsurprising – smoking, level of exercise and diet, but there are also some other factors, such as how fast you walk on average.
Fast walkers are deemed to be healthier than casual strollers, and therefore at less risk of dropping dead. This is apparently even more important than pulse rate and blood pressure.
Of all the predictive factors, the most important for men is overall self-evaluation of health, while for women it is previous diagnoses of cancer. After that comes smoking for both sexes.
Two Swedish scientists came up with the idea, and based the calculations on a study of the lifestyles and death rates of half a million people in the UK.
Andrea Ganna, co-author of the study, said:
The fact that the score can be measured online in a brief questionnaire, without any need for lab tests or physical examination, is an exciting development. We hope that our score might eventually enable doctors to quickly and easily identify their highest risk patients.
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