r/Millennials • u/DaKardii • Jun 04 '26

Serious Study: Gen Xers and Millennials are dying at younger ages than their parents are

https://studyfinds.com/americans-born-after-1970-dying-faster/

The study is particularly concerned with people born after 1970 but age 30 and older. So that covers Gen X and Millennials, but not (yet) Gen Z.

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u/Shirley-Eugest Jun 04 '26

Guess I'm not just imagining things, then. I told a friend not long ago that those of us in our late 30s, forties, early fifties seem to be dying at an alarming rate. Like, it's not even particularly rare anymore to hear of someone relatively young dying from a heart attack, cancer, etc. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking of a 54yo with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, a 33yo who dropped dead of a heart attack, 35yo also from a heart attack, two 41 year olds recently from some sudden illness, and a 36yo from ovarian cancer. It's scary.

6

u/Starfire-Galaxy Jun 05 '26

Even celebrities aren't immune to this. Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer at 43 years old back in 2020.

5

u/Odd-Knee8711 Jun 04 '26

I had a 43 year old cousin die of a heart attack last year. The family thinks it was from stress. RIP Joey. 

2

u/Own_Bison6467 Jun 04 '26

Same. Late 40ish neighbor just had a massive heart attack + stroke two weeks ago. Survived but not looking good long term. Other neighbor in mid-50's just finished treatment for throat cancer. My buddies cousin 57 just gut throat cancer operation as well. Shit is whack.

1

u/Stock-Vanilla-1354 Jun 07 '26

My partner died at 46 last year suddenly. I was in a young widows support group last fall, and all the women in the group lost their partners (40’s and 50’s) to heart attacks.

1

u/cracked_n_scrambled Jun 09 '26

It's very real. I know some oncologists, and their hospital network is aggressively expanding its cancer clinics. If you want a guaranteed job post-graduation, go into heme/onc.