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The Data Says This Is How You Will Die

Just try not to die from a selfie accident.

It's pretty morbid to think of the many ways you might die. And statistically, the odds of dying a painless, peaceful death in your sleep are against you. This video by YouTube educational channel AsapScience explains the likelihood of how you might die, and how that's affected by location, age, and health.

In 1901, the average life expectancy was 31, but over a century later people live to an average of 71 years old. In developed countries, life expectancy is even higher, hovering around 82, while in the developing world it's closer to 64. In the world's 34 poorest countries, people are most likely to die of respiratory problems, not from smoking, but from the exhaust fumes and smoke emitted from rudimentary cooking equipment.

While people often die from health problems, freak incidents also account for a small percentage of deaths: 27 people died from selfie-related accidents in 2015, one man died of heart failure and exhaustion from playing Starcraft for 50 hours straight, and 70 children die annually from choking on hot dogs. These are all sad and avoidable, or at least more easily avoidable than the health problems that plagued half of the 2.6 million (out of the 318 million living Americans) in 2014.

Over a million people died in 2014 from heart disease and cancer, whereas 100 years ago, the leading causes of death were tuberculosis or the flu. Sixty percent of hospital deaths are attributed to these causes, and of those one in ten were hospitalized for a month before passing.

Sudden deaths or unintentional injuries or accidents accounted for 136,053 deaths in the United States in 2014, including 38 dog attacks, but zero shark attacks. Moreover, pedestrians have a greater likelihood of dying on city streets, than bicyclists (6200 pedestrian deaths versus 900 biker deaths in the United States in 2013), while alcoholism kills 80 times more people than terrorism.

If you're looking to live a long, healthy life, best to be a Japanese woman, who lives to an average of 87 years old (compared to 80 for American women). The Japanese lifespan is often attributed to diet, so if the odds are against you—since most of the world's population are not in fact Japanese women—emulating their diet might be a good place to start.