Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Medical Error May Be the Third Leading Cause of Death in the US #shorts

3 Jun 2026 · 2 min

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1:43

In this short video, Dr. Aaron Hartman argues that medical error is likely the third leading cause of death in the United States, trailing only cancer and heart disease. He cites a study by Dr. Martin Makary published in the British Medical Journal and actuarial data from Medicare analysts at Massachusetts General Hospital, suggesting that mistakes such as incorrect prescriptions, poor recommendations, and missed preventive measures collectively account for a substantial mortality burden. Hartman notes that the findings faced resistance from American journals, highlighting a systemic reluctance to confront healthcare blind spots. He connects this issue to broader lifestyle factors, stating that 80% of heart disease and 70% of cancer are driven by diet and lifestyle, implying that addressing these basics could reduce the top three causes of death. The video ends with a call for viewers to identify and share perceived blind spots in the current healthcare system.

Chapters

This is the number 3rd killer in our country. It's often overlooked and hardly talked about. It's not number 1, which is cancer. It's not number 2, which is heart disease. Medical error. According to research published by Martin Makary in the British Medical Journal, medical error is potentially the 3rd most common cause of death in our country. Think about that for a second. Things doctors do, wrong prescriptions, wrong recommendations, maybe like not eating fat. You know, or not using hormone replacement therapy. All of these things, when you add them together, potentially are the third most common cause of death in our country. This actually comes from Medicare actuaries up at Boston General, Mass General up in Boston. So it's a big, big, big part of that hospital. For all you don't know, it's part of Harvard. But my question is, if this is just older Medicare individuals, is it number 2 or number 1 potentially medical error cause of death in our country? The thing about it is when Dr. McKeown tried to publish this on the American Journal, said no, he had to go to a British journal, British Medical Journal, to publish this information. Our healthcare system doesn't want to know its blind spots. They don't want to know what they're missing. And that's why it behooves you to find out what these might be, because if you can find them and uncover them, uncover these blind spots, then you can potentially eliminate the third most common cause of death in our country. If you look at 80% of heart disease and 70% of cancer being directly related to diet and lifestyle alone. So if you clean up your diet, eat better, avoid blind spots, you're eliminating number 1, number 2, number 3 cause of death, dismemberment, all kinds of things in our country. That's big. And these are super basic things that don't cost a lot of money. They're not fancy biohacking things that anybody can do anywhere. So keep on following us. I can be curious, what do you think a current blind spot in our healthcare system is? Share your ideas below. I'd love to hear about what you think we might be missing in our current healthcare system.