Last Orders: What you're worth and who benefits when you die

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1. How Long Have I Got?

The days of our lives are threescore years and ten;

And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

Yet is their strength labour and sorrow;

For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

(The King James Bible, 1611)

Greetings, and welcome to chapter 1. If you’ve ever been Queen or a member of The Rolling Stones, you can skip this opening chapter. For the rest of us, here’s where we calculate the number of years left before we are likely to die. For readers of the printed book there are ready-made spaces to fill everything in. If you are reading this as an eBook, then you can use the built-in note facility and type in your responses. And if you don’t want to do that, take some blank sheets of paper or open a new electronic document for your results. The places and spaces for your results and answers are marked all the way through with this little hands-on pointy-finger symbol:

LIFE EXPECTANCY - INSTANT CALCULATION

OK. Let’s begin with a very simple calculation. It’s an instant reckoning for how long you’ve got left to live. According to the official statistics, our average lifespan as citizens is round about 81 years. So the obvious thing to do for an instant result is to subtract the age you are now from 81. Write down or type in the number of years you can expect to live, and this will be the starting point for all the rest of your lifespan calculations.

Example:

I am 40 years old, so I deduct 40 from 81 to discover I’m likely to have 41 years left.

If you’ve ended up with a minus number, you can celebrate the fact you’ve already outlived most other people. On the other hand, if your result is in double digits, you could be thinking you’ve got plenty of time left to get to put your affairs in order. Well, it ain’t necessarily so.

Your life expectancy can be determined with a lot better accuracy when other factors are taken into account. For example, if you are male or female, what stage of life you have already reached, relevant family history, where you live, your weight, your lifestyle, and so on. When specific factors are thrown into the mix, you can calculate much more accurately how long you’ve got left. We are only dealing with adults here, and for our purposes this means over 18s. If you are under 18 then by all means join in and treat it all with the bravado you should, but treat it as a bit of fun that will come into play some time in your future.

PEOPLE ARE LIVING LONGER

The first edition of this book was written in 2017, and the best predictions reckon that our average lifespan will keep on increasing at a significant rate for at least the next ten years. After that it’s anyone’s guess as to how possible breakthroughs and catastrophes will affect things. So, the first thing you need to do is adjust that average figure of 81 years minus your current age life expectancy, if you happen to be reading this in the future.

If it’s not yet 2020 then don’t change a thing. If you are reading this after the year 2020 then make the starting point for your calculations 82 years. By 2025 the average lifespan should have increased by another year, making the starting point 83 years average lifespan. So greetings to the future, and make any necessary adjustments to your starting point in the space below.

2016 to 2020, no change.

2021 to 2024, add 1 year.

2025 onwards, add 2 years.

WOMEN LIVE LONGER THAN MEN

Let’s turn our attention to sex, and this is the simplest aspect of calculating your life expectancy, because the plain fact is that women tend to live longer than men. If you were born female, add 2 years to your life expectancy prediction. If you were born male, subtract 2 years. It’s not fair, but it’s a fact. Now write the result below for your tally of the number of years you are likely to have left.

WHERE YOU LIVE

This section is a bit broad-brush, otherwise we would need to include every post code and zip code in the English-speaking world, and that would take up most of the book.

Use the geographic regions from the list below and find the nearest match for where you live or spend most of your time, then add or subtract the number of years associated with it and update your predicted lifespan.

UK

South East England, add 2 years.

South West England, Eastern England, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, add 1 year.

London, East Midlands, Yorkshire & Humber, no change.

Wales, West Midlands, North East England, North West England, subtract 1 year.

Northern Ireland, Scotland, subtract 2 years.

Republic of Ireland

This is a very simple calculation. Leave your life expectancy figure unchanged.

New Zealand

This is another simple calculation. Leave your life expectancy figure unchanged.

Australia

Victoria, South Australia, no change.

Western Australia, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory, subtract 1 year.

New South Wales, Queensland, subtract 2 years.

Northern Territory, subtract 7 years.

Canada

British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, add 1 year.

Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, no change.

Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, subtract 1 year.

Northwest Territories, subtract 2 years.

Yukon, subtract 3 years.

Nunavut, subtract 10 years.

USA

Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut, California, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, no change.

New Hampshire, New Jersey, Utah, Colorado, Wisconsin, Washington, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Iowa, Arizona, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Idaho, subtract 1 year.

Florida, Maine, Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Montana, Texas, subtract 2 years.

New Mexico, Delaware, Wyoming, Alaska, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, subtract 3 years.

Georgia, South Carolina, District of Columbia, subtract 4 years.

Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, subtract 5 years.

Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi, subtract 6 years.

So, adjust your previous life expectancy depending on where you live, and record the new calculation.

YOUR STAGE OF LIFE

The next factor to take into account is what stage of the game you’ve already reached, which gives a more accurate life expectation. Life expectancy at birth is irrelevant to you. You are already old enough to be reading this and interested in finding out more. Surviving through infancy and early adulthood is a good move, and if you are under 45 don’t change a thing. So, the number of years to adjust and write below is,

if you are under 45 years old, make no changes

45 to 54 years old, add 1 year

55 to 64 years old, add 2 years

65 to 74 years old, add 3 years

75 to 84 years old, add 4 years

over 85 years old, add 5 years

LIFE EXPECTANCY - YOUR CUSTOMISED CALCULATION

So, now you have an idea of how long you should expect to stay alive if you are an average citizen. The thing is, you’re not an average citizen. Life expectancy based on averages can take no account of the effect of war, famine, pestilence, accident, stress, debauchery or much else. You need to dig a lot deeper to come up with a customised life expectancy, and you need to be completely honest about your lifestyle too. Brace yourself. Here goes.

Take as long as you want, or be as quick as you like, to answer some basic questions about yourself. Each answer will affect the estimate of your life expectancy, either by prolonging it or shortening it. There are no right or wrong answers, only honest ones. And you can afford to be utterly honest with yourself, because nobody else will know the result unless you choose to tell them. If you are not sure about an answer, for example if you don’t know your family history, either make your best guess or leave it out of your calculation.

YOUR WEIGHT

The way your weight affects your life-expectancy is the biggest factor, in all senses. We are not concerned with childhood obesity here, only how weight affects mortality in adults over the age of 18. We are about to find out if you qualify as obese, because if you do, there is a good chance your lifespan may be reduced. In order of the risks involved with overweight these are, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, cancer, bladder disease, arthritis, stroke, followed by a whole host of other ailments.

The simplest way of getting a snapshot of your personal risk is to calculate your body mass index, or BMI for short. It’s a way of measuring where you fit in against the ideal weight for your height, and it was invented back in 1796 by a Belgian mathematician called Adolphe Quetelet, so blame him if you don’t like the results.

There are five broad categories in the BMI, and you’re in one of them:

underweight - which can be a cause for concern

normal weight - recognised as the ideal healthy state to be in

overweight - a reduction in weight would be a very good idea

obese - there is a strong risk of a shortened life

clinically obese - some folk weigh so much it’s likely to kill them.

If you have access to the internet, there’s a quick accurate BMI calculator on www.living.estate. If you don’t have online access then all you need to know is your height in bare feet and your weight in bare everything. First find the horizontal line in the diagram below that matches your height. Now identify the vertical line that best matches your weight. OK, now pinpoint where those two lines cross and see what category you fall in. That’s it.

You have just established which BMI category you are classed in by the medical profession: underweight, normal OK weight, overweight, obese or clinically obese. Now for the reckoning, and remember this is probably the strongest predictor of mortality among adults. We are about to see if you need to adjust anything from the time you’re likely to have left to live.

No need to subtract anything if you are underweight. However, there may be a slim chance you are malnourished or suffering from an eating disorder, or you may be ill, or of course you may be perfectly healthy. Best thing to do is go visit your doctor and get some advice.

If you are a normal OK weight you’re doing fine. Add 1 year to your current total.

If you are overweight, deduct 1 year if you are nearer the left-hand edge of the section, or 2 years if you are nearer the right-hand edge of your section of the graph above.

If you are obese, deduct 3 years if you are nearer the left-hand edge of the section, or 4 years if you are nearer the right-hand edge of your section of the graph above.

If you are clinically obese, deduct 6 years if you are near the left-hand edge of the section, 8 years if you are somewhere in the middle, or 10 years if you are near the right-hand edge of your section of the graph above.

YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

It will come as no surprise to hear that if you inherit good genes, you have a better chance of reaching a ripe old age. If you’re not sure about aspects of your family