In the linked study (doi:10.1136/bmj.b1175), Dupre and colleagues assess the relation between levels of frailty and type of death in a prospective cohort study of older adults in China, using recent data from two waves (2002 and 2005) of the Chinese longitudinal healthy longevity survey.1 The study found that higher levels of frailty at baseline significantly increased the overall risk of death in the subsequent three year period, as would be expected. More interestingly, frailty had varying effects on people’s dying experiences, mainly with respect to sex and age. In general, elderly women had a higher risk of mortality relative to men as frailty increased. Although both elderly men and women with the highest level of frailty (ranked in upper quarter of the frailty index) …