Life Expectancy

A recent news item has said that the lifespan of Americans has been declining in the past few years, while that of Europeans and Asians has been increasing.

It was stated that this is attributable to Drug and Alcohol abuse, Poor Diet, Obesity, and ignoring regular Health Checkups.

Hal

 

Maybe, due to Europe and Asia having affordable or state supported health care as compared to our ridiculous expenses, this also has become a contributing factor.

 

I performed a small check and yes, the American life expectancy has indeed gone down but the reasoning is sort of stupid in my most humble opinion.

Some sites do attribute the decline due to poor health care but the overwhelming opinion has something to do with suicides and overdoses.
The reason I write that the prognostication of the life expectancy of Americans is stupid is that I do question if suicide and drug overdoes are prevalent for the Average American. For that to be true then the Majority of Americans would have to be abusing some controlled substance and / or thinking of suicide.

In 1950 the life expectancy was only around 65 years of age but it is now around 78. Surprisingly, in 1900 the number to beat was just 46 for males and 48 for females but I do sorely digress from the topic at hand.

The suicide rate has gone up since the year 2000 and so has drug abuse but the percentages per 100,000 people just do no add up to cast a good and reliable study regarding longevity for the average American.

The bottom line is that I don’t see how suicide and drug abuse can even be included in a reliable analysis. If indeed they are included in the overall equation then the basic format is in error.....again, in my opinion.

 

I imagine that "life expectancy" is simply an average of ages at time of death, not considering the cause of death. The number is what it is.

 

Though I do respect what you are proposing, the statisticians are attempting to give reasons for the decline with drug overdresses and suicide somehow leading in the forefront.
Maybe they are correct but it would seem that since there are more commercial gyms and more health oriented organizations than ever before in our history I can’t envision the reasoning for the decline to be correct.
If they had touted obesity as the leading culprit I might be more agreeable to the stats because it’s been acknowledged that American obesity has risen sharply in the last couple of decades and obesity can lead to a myriad of mental and physical illnesses.....but......dunno.

I’ll have to do some more research later on just to see what the truth really is.

 

I just found this graph. Notice how the U.S., which starts lower as to life expectancy, drops more and more dramatically during Covid. Shots or the virus itself?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#/media/File:Life_expectancy_post-COVID.png

This is from wikipedia obviously. Do they have an agenda that would lead them to do this?

 

A couple of articles I have recently read said that suicide, drug overdoses, heart attacks and liver disease are on the upswing in the U.S. Covid has been added into that since 2020 but that’s one subject I do not believe that anyone has a true handle on.

 

I wonder why it affects the U.S. dramatically more than other Western nations?

 

Dunno. Maybe because the U.S. is such a permissive county, we’re just permitting ourselves to be stupider.

Seriously though, there are a lot of variables that have come into play that were not there prior to ‘20-‘21.
With the open door policy on our southern border, more diseases and drugs have poured in not to mention that the very people themselves have a life expectancy of around 65 or so when they get here. Whether coming into a healthier lifestyle changes things is something to consider though.

The uptick in gender dysphoria has a definite impact in relation to stress and suicide and the “fat is fantastic” craze is lending to earlier deaths.
Overall suicide rates have jumped almost 3% with the overall mental illness figures jumping to 1 of 5 in 2021 and around 34% of them are between the ages of 18-25.
With the lifestyle rise of male and female promiscuity, STD’s have gone up with about 11 million of them having HIV and many more that do not even know that they’re infected.

Now, add in the fact that since Covid, the rise in heart attacks for whatever reason has risen some 30% with people between the ages of 25-44, Houston, we have a problem.

 

This is for men. You can see the data for women by clicking the link.

https://www.finder.com/life-insurance/odds-of-dying

 

On the lighter side (or perhaps not), approximately 1.3+ million Americans identify as transgender and their life expectancy is only an astounding 35 years.

 

Suicide rates among the transgender crowd are astonishing high whether they go through a transition or not. It is truly sad. If they are really that confused, I guess they can never be happy.