what does "death by natural causes" mean?

No Cancer is not Natural...Its a Disease.... Natural means you have no prior diagnosis of any disease..you just...DIE !..

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Comment from AiricR
Date: 12/18/2006 12:51AM GMT
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No Cancer is not Natural...Its a Disease.... Natural means you have no prior diagnosis of any disease..you just...DIE !..

Comment from lherrou
Date: 12/18/2006 03:26AM GMT
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No, natural means occurring without human intervention, either by accident (accidental death) or on purpose (murder, manslaughter, etc).


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So can cancer be attained through human intervention or what makes cancer an un natural way of dieing ?

>Everyone dies of something nowadays.

I have heard this, also that if they couldn't find anything they had a name for to put 'Pneumonia' on the death certificate.
I thought this meant that you had stopped breathing, which could either be a symptom or a cause of death.
A little bit of googling tells me that 'pneumonia' by itself as a cause is not acceptable anymore, they now want recorded how the pneumonia was contracted. In any case I don't think they are allowed to put 'Old Age' in the 'Cause of death' box.

Getting cheerfully old and not being murdered, having an accident or contracting anything terminal would be 'natural'.
But you will go sometime - your heart may just stop beating (heart failure), immune system fails(first [and last]thing you catch), liver packs up.... etc. theres probably a name for most things.

No one dies of old age; they die due to complications which accompany old age.  There is always some reason that can be pin-pointed, but as nickq5 said, "death by natural causes is a death that is not unexpected."

As with all things in this universe, our bodies are subject to entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics.  Essentially, all things go from a state of order to disorder unless the is active intervention from an intelligent outside source, and there really is only so much out intelligence can do.  Instead of putting "natural causes" on the death certificate, one could, in concept anyways, just as correctly write "entropy" or "time".

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.
~ "Time" riddle by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

May your life be like a roll of toilet paper, long and useful!
^_^

No one dies of old age or of natural causes anymore.  All causes are known, even if they are expected.

I believe that the use of the word ‘natural causes’ is not scientific but is medico-legal. The concept will vary in different countries and states. As you can see in the following article, there are no specific definitions for the terms natural and unnatural death.
http://www.bristol-inquiry.org.uk/final_report/annex_a/chapter_18_12.htm

It is easier to talk about unnatural death. Three groups of deaths fall in to this category- violence , Violation and Volition.
http://www.giftfromwithin.org/html/recovery.html
This would include deaths caused by active human intervention; so homicide and suicide are unnatural. Accident and misadventure including adverse outcome of operations, poisoning and drug abuse would be unnatural. Death from animal attacks can be classified unnatural though some can disagree. Failure of medical intervention in a medical condition to prevent death is not considered unnatural death.
http://www.custance.org/old/seed/ch1s.html

This then leads to the definition of natural death. Generally we mean by this the death happening all living beings. Before the advances in medicine made more and more clinical conditions to be diagnosed, every ‘old’ individual’s death was said to be due to natural causes. Cancer, heart failure, stroke etc are caused of natural death. If there are no clear cut unnatural causes and there is a cause that happens from a change in the physiology, then the death is due to natural causes.

Ageing has many mechanisms which are not very clear. As the cells continue the division in successive generations, the DNA which is the basis of genes become damaged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing
 Ageing is characterised by the declining ability to respond to stress, increasing homeostatic imbalance and increased risk of disease; Macrobiotics is the art and science of longevity. Euthanasia- does it constitute natural or unnatural death in an elderly dying patient? opinions will vary.

Another problem is defining old age. Is it chronological or physiological? then it will become difficult oto give figures too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elderly
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Cancer can occur naturally.  It doesn't necessarily mean that there has been an excess of something in the person's lifestyle.

The definition of "Natural Causes" as a cause of death has changed over time.

In the nineteenth Century one of the commonest causes of infant deaths on medical certificates was "Teething"!  In older people it was "Senile Decay" (A term occasionally still used today!)

Nowadays as already mentioned it is death from an expected cause, usually the disease process leading to death is also given but where there is no other information on the certificate it normally means organic failure that is age related.