Ever wanted to know the likelihood of whether you're going to die soon or not? Me neither, but thanks to a new online test called UbbLE, you can calculate if you'll die in the next five years. Sounds a little morbid to me, but it's also weirdly fascinating. Brushes with our own mortality may not necessarily be a bad thing, right?
The test itself is based in a lot of research and data from the UK biobank. Researchers used the blood, urine, and saliva samples around 500,000 people for a four-year time span between 2006 and 2010, all of whom had agreed to have their health monitored for the rest of their lives. The purpose of the study was to see why some people develop illnesses and others don't. Other factors that went into determining lifespan (other than markers found through fluid samples) were cognitive function, early life factors, family history, sex-specific factors, psychosocial factors, and sociodemographics — things like occupation, ethnicity, housing conditions, and so on.
There are a few drawbacks, of course, with the two big ones being these: The research used to create the UbbLE test was conducted only on people between the ages of 40 and 70, and only from people living in the U.K. As such, it won't necessarily be an accurate measure for people who live in the United States — and it certainly won't be accurate for calculating the mortality of a 21-year-old female like myself.
But as an experiment and out of curiosity to see what the test looked like, I imagined myself as a 40-year-old woman and went ahead and predicted what my answers might look like in 19 years. Here's what I found:
1. The Basics
The test starts by asking you for your age (which must be between 40 and 70) and your gender; then it gives you a little summary of what it's all about.
2. Do You Have Kids?
I was pretty comfortable predicting how many kids I've my 40-year-old self might have.
3. Do You Smoke?
Not right now, no.
4. Have You Ever Smoked?
A little bit.
5. How's Your Overall Health?
I'm good, thanks!
6. How About Your Long-Term Health?
The test asked whether or not I have been diagnosed with any sort of long-standing disability or seen adoctor for anxiety. Since both of thesethings are true for me, these answers were easy, but if you haven't been diagnosed with anything, it might be impossible to predict.
7. How's Your Walking Speed?
I'm assuming my pace will remain pretty quick.
8. Have You Been Diagnosed With Cancer?
The next question was kind of impossible to predict. Though neither my lifestyle choices nor family history indicates a high chance of the disease, you never really know. In the interest of optimism, I went ahead and marked "no."
9. Anything Else We Should Know?
The next question also asked about health-related issues that occurred within the last two years, so again, I went ahead and optimistically predicted good health.
The Results:
After I finished the questionaire, I got a little description of my "UbbLE age," which is the age that has the most similar risk of dying in the next five years and the liklihood that I will die in the next five years. As it turns out, an UbbLE age of 29 means I have about a 0.2 percent risk of dying within five years as a 40 year old person! Hooray! Of course, the test assumes that every body is the same and that one factor will affect several people the same way. It also assumes that no accident, natural disaster, or other external issue will take a life within the next five years.
Of course, no complaints with the analysis! If you wanna take the test yourself, take it here — but it might better to have someone who actually fits within the age bracket take it for the most accurate results.
Images: Bill Gracey/Flickr; Ubble (10)
