[bgill]

However, the researchers point out that in modern Britain some 40-50% of people have cancer by the time they die, making the disease 3-4 times more common today than the latest study suggests it was during medieval times.

Uh huh, 3-4 times more common today.... annnnd another invalid study. People live twice as long today than they did then.

[Blood of Tyrants]

If you managed to make it past the first five years of life, you had a decent chance to live into old age. The mortality rate of 0-5 year olds was near 50% which skewed the life expectancy charts.

[Varda]

Back then old was 60. Now we have have huge population over that age. Cancer is mostly a disease of people over 65.

[Verginius Rufus]

I saw a chart once showing life expectancies in the 18th century. Lots of people died in their 20s, 30s and 40s. If you lived to adulthood you had a 50% chance of surviving another 20 years.

According to the information in The World Almanac, Edward the Confessor died at 62 and was the longest-lived Anglo-Saxon king of England. The first king of England to live past 70 was George II, who lived to 77. The only ones to live past 80 so far are George III, Queen Victoria (both of whom died at 81) and the present queen.