US Life Expectancy Falls Further (cnn.com) 336
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday released data that shows life expectancy fell by one-tenth of a year, to 78.6 years (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source), pushed down by the sharpest annual increase in suicide in nearly a decade and a continued rise in deaths from opioid drugs. "Influenza, pneumonia and diabetes also factored into last year's increase," The Wall Street Journal adds. From the report: Economists and public-health experts consider life expectancy to be an important measure of a nation's prosperity. The 2017 data paint a dark picture of health and well-being in the U.S., reflecting the effects of addiction and despair, particularly among young and middle-aged adults, as well as diseases plaguing an aging population and people with lower access to health care. The U.S. has lost three-tenths of a year in life expectancy since 2014, a stunning reversal for a developed nation, and lags far behind other wealthy nations. Life expectancy is 84.1 years in Japan and 83.7 years in Switzerland, first and second in the most-recent ranking by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. ranks 29th.
White men and women fared the worst, along with black men, all of whom experienced increases in death rates. Death rates rose in particular for adults ages 25 to 44, and suicide rates are highest among people in the nation's most rural areas. On the other hand, deaths declined for black and Hispanic women, and remained the same for Hispanic men. As drug and suicide mortality has risen, deaths from heart disease, the nation's leading killer, went down only slightly, failing to offset the increases in mortality from other causes and prolonging another worrisome trend.
White men and women fared the worst, along with black men, all of whom experienced increases in death rates. Death rates rose in particular for adults ages 25 to 44, and suicide rates are highest among people in the nation's most rural areas. On the other hand, deaths declined for black and Hispanic women, and remained the same for Hispanic men. As drug and suicide mortality has risen, deaths from heart disease, the nation's leading killer, went down only slightly, failing to offset the increases in mortality from other causes and prolonging another worrisome trend.
Consequences... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Consequences... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dont forget about the food pyramid, processed foods, and high sugar drinks. Politics and lobbyists had a huge hand in all of this too.
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Yeah. Processed foods and high sugar drinks make people kill each other and themselves and use hard drugs.
At least read the fucking summary if you can't be assed to click on any of the links.
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From the same summary that you think you read: "diabetes also factored into last year's increase"
Processed foods and high sugar drinks are causative for diabetes
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Unlike the rest, diabetes is a fairly slow killer. Unless you can find me a reason why diabetes hits exactly now that the others strike, I dare say it's irrelevant.
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Being a slow killer simply means that cumulative effect on population is delayed. Eventually it will start being felt, and it will keep getting worse. This appears to be the beginning of this delayed effect showing on mortality rates. It will likely keep getting worse as more and more diabetics die early due to wide array of health complications that both type1 and type2 cause.
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But you do know that only one of them can actually be influenced by your diet, yes?
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They are literally different diseases, that however result in extremely similar outcomes. Which is why we call them "diabetes" and then specify the type.
Re:Consequences... (Score:4, Interesting)
Leaded water pipes, pill bottles instead of blister packs, lack of regular steady jobs that allow you to have a reasonably well planned life, insane housing prices out of touch of the working class, etc.
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In much of Europe, NSAIDs are only sold in blister packs as their citizens are apparently too incompetent to handle a 500 bottle of ibuprofen.
I'd think that would annoy Germans at least. Nobody likes to be infantilized...Fair enough...Outside a very few in Berlin who are into diapers, nobody likes to be infantilized.
Re:Consequences... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sugar ín everything and drinking a litre of sugar water every day helps too.
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Sugar makes you want to kill yourself and take drugs?
I must have missed that study.
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Drugs and suicide are attractive when you are fat and have diabetes.
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What about when you are skinny and have diabetes? 188 cm, 75 kg, diabetic here. Of course, my excuse is lack of several internal organs, not sugar....
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Sugar makes you want to kill yourself and take drugs?
I must have missed that study.
Isn't it something how people bring out their favorite axes to grind?
So far this has been caused by:
Hillary
Trump
Sugar
Capitalism
Socialism
Healthcare
No Healthcare
Opioids
Pain
Wilford Brimly (diabeeties)
We need someone to step up and claim its because we've turned away from religion. C'mon Slashdotters!
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No. Sugar's too expensive with all the duties on it. High Fructose Corn Syrup is in everything.
Re:Consequences... (Score:4, Insightful)
Long working hours, stress due to stupid societal expectations, bullying via social media, poor health care unless you have a cush job
Well it's lucky that #1 Japan doesn't have a problem with any of these.
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It does [wikimedia.org].
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He was being sarcastic and thus implying that the factors that the OP cited were not the main drivers.
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Long working hours, stress due to stupid societal expectations, bullying via social media, poor health care unless you have a cush job ... they all have consequences.
Tobacco is still a legal product. And before we dismiss that with "choice", medical error kills almost as many Americans every year.
We allowed the Medical Industrial Complex to put opium in a prescription bottle, CAFO operators to fight for as little regulation as possible, and HFCS infected our food supply.
Every government on the planet has a job to do, and part of that job is resource management. That includes population control. Many of our most deadly-yet-legal products highlight this fact. The US G
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Yeah, we should ban alcohol! Because that would save lives by the tens of thousands, with no downsides whatsoever!
What's that you say? It's been tried already? Well, then, why were we silly enough to stop the Noble Experiment? It couldn't have failed to achieve the intended result
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Long working hours, stress due to stupid societal expectations, bullying via social media, poor health care unless you have a cush job
Except for social media, none of these are new. I'm sure social media bullying has increase suicide rates, but I doubt its by much.
Not being able to get a job is worse for most people than long working hours. That has been tied to the opioid epidemic by some studies. As automation continues to push people out of the low-end economic jobs, people who simply can't do anything else, suicide rates and opioid addiction will only increase. I'm not sure what the solutions is, but it's more than money: most peo
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Beats working for a job you don't care about, with a salary you don't care about, with no benefits to even consider.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Consequences... (Score:5, Funny)
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Ya know what they say: abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.
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Ya know what they say: abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.
I thought that it was Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder?
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Are you sure? My wife tells me that when I have sex with her, it makes her sick.
Weird. When I have sex with her, she doesn't get sick. I wonder what the difference is? ;)
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Re: Consequences... (Score:4, Interesting)
With Trump in the White House who wants to live?
Suicides went up the most among elderly rural males. In other words, Republicans. These people should be the happiest with Trump.
America is an outlier here. Worldwide suicide rates have declined more than 29% since 2000 [economist.com].
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A lot of people in rural areas were hoping that Trump would help them as their industries declined, but it was false hope. No-one can reverse the decline of things like coal, and even where action is possible it takes many years and long term policies.
Populists always disappoint. Politics in general does, but particularly populists.
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A lot of people in rural areas were hoping that Trump would help them as their industries declined, but it was false hope.
That's a very popular platitude, but the facts [washingtonpost.com] seem to be pointing in a different direction.
and even where action is possible it takes many years and long term policies
To the extent that's true, that's even more reason not to throw out words like "false hope" this early in the game.
Trapped in a surreality show without the TV? (Score:3)
Basically expressing concurrence (or some form of solidarity?) with this comment and some others you've made, but I don't (ever) have any mod points to give you. [I've stopped wondering why no mod points. Just one more aspect of the broken and incurable state of Slashdot in general and the moderation in particular.]
However it takes years for new causes to affect mortality statistics and therefore I think it is too soon to blame #PresidentTweety, even though I agree he is a YUGE source of unnecessary stress.
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I just want to live long enough to see how this ends. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be worth the wait.
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Obamacare causes suicides and an ongoing opiod crisis? Because that are the main factors for the declining life expectancy.
I'm waiting for the Commander in Chief to bring that up.
Better to die of natural causes (Score:5, Funny)
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If you've never smelled Russian tobacco, you live an extra 10 years longer no matter what else you do. There is a leather and transmission fluid component somehow. Of course their counterfeit Vodka is just mislabeled ammonia.
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Ammonia is too expensive. They typically put methanol (i.e. wood alcohol) on those fake vodka bottles.
White vs Hispanic (Score:5, Interesting)
The enormous difference between age-adjusted death rate of Whites and Hispanics is surprising.
White males are dying at a 40% higher rate than Hispanics (age adjusted of course.)
This is about the same as the gender gap in death rate, which starts from birth. Males are much more likely to die in cots, or as toddlers in pools.
Is the racial gap across life like that, or appearing in middle age from diet-related disease?
Do the English-speaking children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants maintain that advantage if they live a mainstream American lifestyle?
i.e. nature or nurture?
Re: White vs Hispanic (Score:2, Interesting)
It was just in another large news outlet the other day that the suicide rates are the highest they've been in 50 years, and the vast majority of them are white males over the age of 14.
The sad fact is that no media outlets or ethnicities will really care about it.
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Tell a bunch of people that they're the responsible for every evil on the world due being born the wrong gender and race enough times and they may decide to "take care of the evil".
Re:Suicide (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference in suicide rate from AC's link is 12 per 100,000. (18 vs 6)
The overall death rate is 885 vs 632, a difference of 253 per 100k.
So suicide rates, while high, only explain 5% of the white-hispanic male difference.
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Decisions, Decisions (Score:5, Interesting)
You either live long enough to go bankrupt from the out of control US healthcare system
or you die young without ever having to experience the horrors of how this country treats
its elderly.
Personally, I think I would prefer the latter over the former.
( and I'm closer in age to the latter than the former )
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Next time invest better or get a job instead of being a welfare liberal.
What should someone who has a full-time job or pair of part-time jobs do when said job or jobs turn out inadequate to pay for food and shelter?
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Become an awesome independent contractor like cayenne8.
Did I mention that he's awesome?
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Well, once you move out of your basement and stop playing The Sims you'll notice that out in the real world, it ain't as easy as in a computer game.
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Get better jobs
Who's hiring?
Then let's find the right website (Score:3)
Then let's find the right website. My cousin recently graduated from university and is seeking a first job, but most job postings in his combination of field (computer science) and location (Fort Wayne, Indiana) require a degree plus two years of related experience. He told me that he doubts that, say, working at a Wendy's restaurant for two years would qualify as "related" enough. What website should he be looking at? Or should he instead be asking the HR department of each company seeking experienced work
Cuba (Score:4, Insightful)
[US] life expectancy fell by one-tenth of a year, to 78.6 years
One tenth of a year was the difference between USA and the 50 years embargoed Cuba in WHO 2015 study [wikipedia.org].
Re:Cuba (Score:5, Informative)
Right, but those stats are heavily biased by infant mortality rate definitions where the same baby who dies in Cuba and the US gets eliminated from the stats as never having been born in Cuba, but as a very short life expectancy in the US.
Creating a huge negative based on the fact that in the US they're extremely more likely to try and save severely premature babies than they are in Cuba is a bit ridiculous and renders those stats effectively meaningless.
For example [forbes.com]:
That does NOT explain it (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you disagree with the facts provided, then feel free to provide a different set of facts and source.
But simply resorting to insulting people, countries and organizations just demonstrates you have no actual argument nor knowledge on your side.
Courtesy of China (Score:4, Informative)
30k deaths in 2017 from fentanyl overdose, most of it coming from China. And rates are growing exponentially.
Re:Courtesy of China (Score:4, Insightful)
Overprescribing was addressed in the worst possible way. Forcing people off their prescriptions of a standardized product led to seeking black market alternatives. This is yet another example of how prohibition takes something dangerous and makes it massively more so, since we keep falling for the same old idea that people won't take/can't get drugs if you simply ban them.
Make no mistake, this massive spike in ODs wasn't some unforeseen surprise, everyone familiar with opiate abuse predicted this. The policy makers were no doubt informed of this, and then actively chose massively increasing overdose deaths over people continuing to use a less fatal alternative under some medical supervision. Not only that, our new crisis of severely undertreated pain has come roaring back, and legitimate pain patients are ODing and killing themselves [medium.com] too. Another totally foreseen consequence. Once again, the government looked at a drug problem and said 'Lots of people are dying, how can we make even more people suffer and die?'. It's sadomoralism, they desire only to punish drug users (not just abusers), not to actually reduce the harm drugs cause.
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Actually they desperately want to be seen as "doing something", no matter the cost to society. Ideally, something that'd actually pass, unlike sane comprehensive drug policy reform. Addressing the opioid epidemic was a plank of many political platforms this year.
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30k deaths in 2017 from fentanyl overdose, most of it coming from China. And rates are growing exponentially.
Yeah, and heroin usage spiked when we started cracking down on pill mills.
Root-cause analysis points a lot of spiking drug usage back to when we allowed the Medical Industrial Complex to shove opium in a prescription bottle and then lobby to subsidize costs and make opioid addiction as cheap as possible for the masses.
Yeah, we have someone to blame alright. It ain't who you think.
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Fentanyl is often added to other drugs without the user's knowledge. It ups the perceived potency, and therefore lets the drugs be cut more. However, it's extremely dangerous.
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Hey, don't poop free market and capitalism!
TECH! (Score:3)
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Indeed, let's ask Facebook and Amazon what they're doing about that.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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Too bad it's the young people who are needed to prop up the social security system who are dying in unusually large numbers...
Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the article I read, the main cause of the drop is an increase in suicide and drug overdoses among the young. Which means fewer people pumping money into the system, without much corresponding drop in the people drawing out of the system. So I'd expect the opposite results...
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So what matters is the life expectancy at ~62 relative to the growth/decline of the population of ~15-45 years olds who will be funding their next ~20 years. Geezers dying from our awful healthcare system will help SSA, young folks giving up and committing suicide or OD'ing will not.
YouTube (Score:2)
Famous last words in the past...
Hey, watch this!
Famous last words now...
I've got an idea for an viral video! Let's try...
(Hint - the Tide Pod challenge)
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True heroes.
If we only had more people like them, if only to have eventually fewer people like them.
Really? Surprise! (NOT) (Score:5, Informative)
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We also lead in greasy, cheap food and sedentary lifestyles. Much of the death increase is a result of success, including opiod addiction in a perverse way.
Go look at the reasons again.
It's drug overdose rates skyrocketing (Score:3)
What's sad about this is the sole reason for the lowering is the large increase in drug overdoses [go.com].
If we would just legalize drug use we could ensure people got help they needed instead of hiding the problem for fear of being arrested... and get safer drugs to boot.
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Not only that if people are overdosing on medications they were prescribed in rising numbers too, legalisation doesn't really make much of a difference with those deaths. I think there's a much larger problem here than just saying: legalise it and people will know they need help when they do, actual
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Re:It's drug overdose rates skyrocketing (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalizing isn't washing your hands of it, it's merely the start of being able to truly help.
Keeping such drugs illegal is washing our hands and then using our clean hands to dig a large hole into which we place our heads so we cannot hear the screams of the damned.
If we tried what Portugal did [independent.co.uk] 14 years ago, maybe we'd have similar success...
Don't forget we could still go after dealers of really dangerous stuff, it would juts make small quantities illegal.
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In other words it's kind of
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Call me cold-hearted, but I don't see a big problem there.
Where I see the problem is that there is a profound lack of non-addictive pain killers in the states. A lot of stuff that is commonly used in Europe is either not FDA-approved or had their approval removed because of some very uncommon side effects. Change that and the only people who overdose would be the ones who are using drugs voluntarily and if they don't care about their lives, why should I?
Who cares about the poor, what about middle class? (Score:3, Insightful)
USA numbers are bad because of the underclass of uninsured and un cared for people.
But slash dot readers are middle class (despite their wingeing). and I think you will find that middle class Americans do just fine.
Just don't ever get poor.
Re: Who cares about the poor, what about middle cl (Score:5, Interesting)
The middle class is dying. And the bulk of people I've worked for were unhealthy slobs who will die stupidly young.
The air pollution around Portland, OR - home of the middle class, or at least theur books - is replete with heavy metals such as mercury. And restrictions are being lifted. It will get worse.
Emotional instability (Score:5, Interesting)
Is a product of poor education and poor diet. The areas affected suffer both.
Poor genetic health is a factor, with urban communities typically having better genes, but that would be overwhelmed by diet and education.
America's he-man culture and lack of functioning health service (mental health is virtually absent, synthetic opium is handed out like candy by doctors to make up for it) are other major blunders.
And remember this is an average life expectancy, it's different for men and women. Men tend to live shorter lifespans. And it's male lifespans that are falling fastest.
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You might have noticed that the effin SUMMARY (no need to even read an article) states that the reasons are not natural, but artificial shortening of life, like suicide, murder and sickness. It's not a matter of diet or education, it's a matter of money.
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Poor genetic health is a factor, with urban communities typically having better genes
Ummm, what? You're actually claiming that rural folks are genetically inferior in some way? Got a link to back that up, or are you just stereotyping them all as inbreds?
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"White men and women fared the worst"
Woah, you cant say that!
And it is a stupid comment, given that the year-to-year changes are very small, a tiny fraction of the persistent differences by race and gender:
See page 2: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/... [cdc.gov]
Black males are more than twice as likely to die, as Hispanic females of the same age.
Which makes the overall death rate increase of 0.4% from last year, or 0.13% fall in life expectancy, look trivial.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly correct, you should ban your government from using those statistics. The only thing allowed is member of the original American nations, natural born US citizens, immigrant citizen (from where ever), how old they are (responsibilities and protections), their gender (male or female or anything they want to make up, protection) and that is pretty much it. Hey I am olive skin in winter I am white and in summer I am golden brown (well used to be, do slack to go out in the sun that much anymore), so what
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The good news is the end appears to be coming, and with a quickness.
The change in life expectancy is very small. I'd rather know about quality of life. How active are people in their later years?
Is modern medicine making our lives better?
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It very much depends upon where you are located. If you're in West Virginia, your later years are getting much worse. If you're in California, especially the Central Coast, your later years are great.
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Re: (Score:2, Troll)
https://www.newsweek.com/trump... [newsweek.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Disease? (Score:5, Insightful)
Blame immigrants? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's lots of cancer cures now, cancer is no longer the absolute death sentence it once was. Heart disease? Just ask Dick Cheney if they can fix it.... yeh they can. You blamed immigrants bringing "untreatable contagious conditions". What disease exactly? "heart disease"?? "Suicide"?
Lots of cures for lots of diseases, but healthcare has been de-funded, and large parts of Obamacare have been undermined, and you cannot afford it because you are old and have existing preconditions.
Lots of cures for lots of diseases, BUT NOT FOR YOU.
Of the two countries with the longest lifespans:
Switzerland has compulsary healthcare insurance, aka Obamacare.
Japan has 70%/30 state/compulsary private insurance.
It's not immigrants that bring the problem, the Republican party is home grown. Fox News is a *domestic* propaganda outfit. I's not immigrants that defunds Obamacare.
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There's lots of cancer cures now, cancer is no longer the absolute death sentence it once was. Heart disease? Just ask Dick Cheney if they can fix it.... yeh they can. You blamed immigrants bringing "untreatable contagious conditions". What disease exactly? "heart disease"?? "Suicide"?
Do you know anything about cancer?
It is absolutely a death sentence. While we have successfully reduced for instance cervical cancer incidence drastically by effective screening measures in certain demographics (and the HPV vaccinations are starting to show effects in the incidence rates), most cancers are deadly, and the top 3 (lung, breast, prostate) have probably killed someone in your family.
A successful operation, even at Stage 1A does in no way guarantee a return to the standard life expectancy. A qui
Re:Blame immigrants? (Score:4, Funny)
Cheney has no heart, the pacemaker he has is only there to keep up appearances.
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How many decades since the 1950's have top expert tried to work heart conditions out?
Zero. It's happening now but with fever obvious advances given that the basics are known already.
With all the worlds top epidemiologist , diet tracking, decades of long term health studies?
So who is this top epidemiologist that have to be involved to make the ongoing effort valid in your eyes?
How to make your nation not sick again.
It'd be impossible but a good start would be actually following the advises on exercise and food. Exercise helps the whole body regenerate including the brain, even mental problems can be effectively treated with regular exercise. Eating more healthy is known to reduce cardiovascular problems and can potentia
Re:Disease? (Score:4, Interesting)
A series of advanced nations have the same levels of decades of industrialization in and around their city areas.
The same transport, factory products. The US did improve on occupational safety and health. Such a large number of industrial conditions would be easy to track.
The same levels of water treatment. The same ability to design working sewer systems. For many decades.
Food should be of the same quality to average working and middle class populations. Doctors do notice and report conditions resulting from a lack of food.
Back to the question of what a well funded US wide epidemiologist study could find.
What are the "societal and economical problems" that makes some advanced nations able to do "health" care on average for their average populations?
Re "Genetics, lifestyle choices, random chance, environmental factors."
Hows the US populations "genetics" different?
Lifestyle choices? Are other advanced nations making their populations do more sport more often?
What are the "random chance" factors unique to the USA not spread over other advanced nations globally?
Re "environmental factors? Lots of unexpected super fund sites in middle class and working class communities all over the USA nobody has ever noticed?
A US epidemiologist would have found that polluted area and published on that interesting collection of medical conditions.
Advanced nations like the USA can track and gather long term health information related to unexpected health problems in any community.
Re:Disease? (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how good your doctor is, if you cannot afford him he could be offering eternal life and you'll still croak from a preventable disease because you just can't afford it.
And with more and more people not being able to... well, what do you expect?
Re: The trend is positive over time (Score:2)
Well, yes, globally.
Regionally, there are communities where it's abnormal to not live to 100 and a fair few reach 110-120. In better shape than most people are at age 60.
We need a better understanding of what their lifestyle does to their body.
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It's also a major contributor to intentional death, so it evens out.
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The CNN article does not mention gun deaths - it is a major contributor to unintentional death and suicide.
Highlighting the fact that 65% of all gun deaths are due to suicide would take away from their anti-gun arguments. That is why it was not included. Anti-gun zealots never want to fracture the gun death statistics.