Men's Health Week 2025: RIP, Sly Stone and Excess Deaths Mainly Come from Males

Come on Guys, Go to a Doctor!

First, a little bit of news:

9 Jun 2025, The Hollywood Reporter: Sly Stone, Funk-Rock Pioneer, Dies at 82

Sly Stone, who took audiences higher during memorable performances at Woodstock and the Fillmore West, but whose career was plagued by drug problems and periodic disappearances, has died. He was 82.

Stone died after a “prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues,” his family said Monday.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved dad, Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone,” they wrote in a statement. “Sly passed away peacefully, surrounded by his three children, his closest friend, and his extended family. While we mourn his absence, we take solace in knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and inspire for generations to come.”

Let us have a moment of inspiration:

Thank you, Sly.

Men die younger than women, in general…but why?

For those who are new here, I have an association with the Insurance Collaboration to Save Lives. The best way to follow the group is our LinkedIn newsletter: Mission Possible. In today’s issue, there are two topics: U.S. Disability Rates Reach All-Time High: Insights from Recent Government Data

Ugh, yeah.

But here is what I want to focus on:

As part of Men’s Health Week, June 9th-15th, ICSL is raising awareness about blood pressure screenings to help prevent cardiovascular risks. Our proprietary CDC Wonder data analysis reports a 31% increase in hypertension-related contributing causes of death over 5 years across all ages, with a 20–29% rise for ages 25–54, and 25–27% for those 65+. Regular screenings can save lives—let’s prioritize heart health! ❤️

These show the increased mortality due to specific contributing causes of death (does not need to be the underlying cause of death, of which there is one and only one).

But these are for all people.

What I haven’t pointed out in many of my mortality analyses, by age and by cause of death, is that most of the large increases of mortality through the COVID pandemic (and before the pandemic) were among males.

And there already has been a fairly sizeable mortality gap.

There are many reasons for it. Some of it is behavioral. Some of it is genetic (the Y chromosome is shorter than the X, yadda yadda, sex-linked issues, etc.) Other issues make males more susceptible to health problems than females.

There are social problems as well.

When you look at my ranking tables of cause of death, separated by sex, you will see a clear difference. Let’s look at the men first.

Notice “accidents” come in at number 3 for most years, and those “accidents” aren’t quite “accidental”, in that… well, the people didn’t mean to die via their activities, but they were often doing some extremely risky things, like partaking of drugs laced with fentanyl (or deliberately using fentanyl) or speeding excessively in their vehicle (or drunk or both).

Because accidental deaths are heavily weighted towards drug overdoses and motor vehicle accident deaths in the U.S.

Note that suicide also ranks in this list. #7 in 2023. I will talk about that in a separate post later this week.

Let’s look at what the female ranking table looks like.

Oh look, accidents are waaaay down there at #6 or 7, depending on the year… and you can’t see suicide in the top 10.

And if you look at the numbers underneath each cause… they’re much lower than what you see with males.

Younger Men Particularly Hard-Hit by Bad Mortality

I could focus specifically on pandemic effects, whether direct or indirect, but if you’re alive and reading this (seriously, if you’re a ghost and reading this… I pity you. What ever did you do in your lifetime to deserve to read Substacks in your afterlife?)… let us get more to the here-and-now.

This is what 2023 looked like for males:

The numbers at the very top show the ratios of male-to-female mortality for each age group.

For every age group, males have higher mortality in the U.S.

It’s worst in adolescence and young adulthood, ages 15-24, a time I called the fatal stupidity period — where accidents and homicide are the top two causes of death for males. Those are the things that grab the headlines.

But I want you to look at this ranking table for males from 2019:

There are a lot of numbers here, and the best thing to do is to pick a specific age group to concentrate on, say, age 35-44.

And you look at the overall rate of death for the year:

• 2019: 0.26%

• 2023: 0.31%

That 0.26% rate in 2019 sounds small, but that was over 53,000 deaths in that year.

So if you think that a 0.05% difference between those two rates may be insignificant, well, actually, that is a large difference in rates. And it counts for thousands of deaths.

We do have to look, cause-by-cause, to see where things may be going awry.

As noted in the chart at the top from the ICSL, not only were external causes of death (accidents, homicides, suicide) having bad trends, but also physiological causes, such as heart disease, kidney and liver problems, and more.

Men’s Health Causes

For those who are new to STUMP (I’m MP - Mary Pat, STU is my late husband, who died from prostate cancer), I’m big on men’s health issues.

I know of at least a few men in my extended circle right now undergoing health crises, at relatively young ages (y’all are in my prayers!)… in some cases, I’m sorry, y’all, but … men, PLEASE GO TO THE DOCTOR ONCE IN A WHILE.

LIKE, WHEN YOU FEEL AWFUL.

This is not joking around.

I addressed finding cancer too late over here:

On Advanced Prostate Cancer: Some Personal Thoughts on Biden's and Scott Adams's Announcements

There are limits to what medicine can do, but for all the jokes about farmers, etc., being forced by their wives to go to the doctor or hospital… speaking as a widow, this ain’t very funny.

Some people get lucky when they go to the doctor after years of trouble and pain. But many don’t. It’s better to go before it becomes catastrophic.

Get your screenings, go to the doctor when you’re sick, don’t frickin be that weekend warrior, get that weird-looking mole checked by a dermatologist, and so on.

Leaving on a High Note

For what it’s worth, Sly dying at age 82 isn’t too bad considering his background.

COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is classified with the “chronic lower respiratory disease” category in my ranking tables above, and it’s #3 for his age group. This comes from all sorts of sources, such as smoking (developing into emphysema or chronic bronchitis) or other drug use. But many can die much earlier than 82 from that.

I grew up hearing his music….

….and just a thought at the beginning of Men’s Health Week: we’re all in this together, my dudes.

Let’s look out for each other.

Peace.

Related Links

• 6 Nov 2024: Movember 2024: My Motivations and the Movember Movement

• 1 Nov 2024: Movember 2024 Kickoff: In Memory of Stu

• 31 May 2025: On Advanced Prostate Cancer: Some Personal Thoughts on Biden's and Scott Adams's Announcements

• 23 Nov 2020: Mortality with Meep: The Sex Gap in COVID and Total Mortality

• 26 Nov 2021: Movember Inspiration: My Dad and the Sex Gap in Mortality