Last night I offered to put the Legos away for the kids. They went to bed and I played for about an hour and a half. It was fun to relax and just build. The immediate gratification of having something tangible to show for your work was a nice change.
So, a couple of people have called about my chest pains. I appreciate their love and concern. I had significant chest pains the month before our wedding, a couple of months before the consulting stint ended, and occasionally when my stress levels get high. I doubt that it is a heart problem, but rather a psychological one. I have felt much better since I stopped worrying about the future.
Someone said "you should go to a doctor... you don't want to be THAT statistic." Since I know a lot about statistics, I thought that I would try to figure out my likelihood of a heart attack....
SHORT VERSION
At my age, I have a very low risk. One that I am willing to bet a lot of money on. Even my life.
LONG VERSION
- The most basic way to summarize heart attack risk would be to look at the annual incidence rate... 1 in 217 or 0.46%. The problem is that this rate includes all of the population in the rate calculation.
- A more precise way to determine a basic probability would be to use the mean and standard deviation and generate a t-score and associated probability.* While the mean age of first heart attack, 65.8, is broadly known, the standard deviation is not readily available on the interwebs. I am forced to assume the standard deviation based on other clues from internet information. Most sites argue that heart attack risk starts to become significant at around 45. If we assume that significant means greater than 5%, then 95% of the data of age at first heart attack is greater than 45, or alternatively, 90% of the data fall between 45 and 86.6 (65.8+/- the difference between 45 and 65.8). This gives us a t of 1.645 for age 45. When we do the algebra, we estimate the standard deviation be be approximately 12.6. We then use these to determine the probability of a 32 year old person (or younger) having a heart attack given that the mean age at first heart attack is 65.8 with a standard deviation of 12.6. The result is a t-score of 2.68 with the associated probability of approximately .0037 or 0.37%.
- Using those same estimates, the likelihood of me having a heart attack before I turn 40, has a t score of 2.04 with the associated probability of .0207 or 2.07%.
- Unfortunately, the above rates are for all individuals at all risk levels, which is a bad assumption. Using a very crude method of including risk factors, I found out that my 10 year heart attack risk is less than 1% (but probably much less than that).
More importantly, I am willing to risk my life.
But a nice gambling win would make it even better.
*we could be forced to assume an approximate normal distribution, but the central limit theorem would argue otherwise
2 comments:
Maybe your true calling in life is to be an actuary. Have i told you that Mark loooooves to read your blog. He thinks you are great. He was also wondering if he should start his own blog and be the sneaker actuary. ha! Just don't die, okay? it's not going to hurt to get the old heart checked out.
It seems a little late in the year to be throwing out big wagers like this. Maybe if you gave me a year from today I'd take the bet. That would give me more time to skip town on you if you are, in fact, still alive next August. But that's a pretty big "if," Angina Boy.
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