Life expectancy keeps rising

Research by Kontis et al published in the Lancet predicts that life expectancy in rich countries will continue rising.

According to their forecasting models life expectancy is projected to increase in 35 industrialized countries.  There is a 90% probability that life expectancy at birth among South Korean women in 2030 will be higher than 87 years, and a 57% probability that it will be higher than 90 years. The projected life expectancy of French, Spanish and Japanese women are close to the South Korean women.

There is a greater than 95% probability that life expectancy at birth among men in Hungary, South Korea, Australia, and Switzerland will surpass 80 years in 2030, and a greater than 27% probability that it will surpass 85 years.

Of the countries studied, the USA, Japan, Sweden, Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia have some of the lowest projected life expectancy gains for both men and women.

The female life expectancy advantage over men is likely to shrink by 2030 in every country except Mexico, where female life expectancy is predicted to increase more than male life expectancy, and in Chile, France, and Greece where the two sexes will see similar gains.

Americans will gain a couple of years of life expectancy between 2010 and 2030 with women living to 83 and men to 76 years.  The reasons for the US lag are not known but the use of opioids, alcoholism and obesity are among the likely causes.

Nations such as China, Russia and India were not included in their study because of lack of adequate data.

While scientists once thought that average life expectancy beyond 90 was not possible, medical advances including good nutrition and social programs make continued increases in longevity real thus careful planning for health, social services and pensions is required.

Obesity linked to premature death

It is well known that being overweight can lead to health complications including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

A recent study published in Lancet reports on a meta-analysis of 239 prospective studies published from 1970 to last year (median follow-up 13·7 years).  Of those 3 951 455 people in 189 studies were never-smokers without chronic diseases at recruitment who survived 5 years, of whom 385 879 died.   The investigators extracted their information from 10 625 411 participants in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and North America.

They compared the risk of death to people's body mass index, or BMI, a measure of body fat that is calculated using height and weight.  They defined a BMI from 18.5 to 25 as normal, 25-30 as overweight, 30-35 as moderately obese and over 40 as severely obese.

In the study, the risk of dying before the age of 70 was 19 percent for men and 11 percent for women of normal weight.

But that risk jumped to 30 percent and 15 percent, respectively, for obese men and women.  The investigators found that overweight people die one year earlier than expected and that moderately obese people die up to three years prematurely.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 600 million more are obese. The associations of both overweight and obesity with higher all-cause mortality were broadly consistent in all four continents. As common diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer have been strongly associated to obesity, strategies to combat it are needed all around the globe.

Obesity

A study by Ng et al reports on the prevalence of obesity in countries around the world.  Their research that was supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and published in Lancet, reviewed more than 1,700 studies covering 188 countries from 1980 to 2013.

The study found more than 2.1 billion individuals worldwide are overweight or obese, up from 857 million in 1980.  Also, obesity was estimated to have caused 3·4 million deaths, 3·9% of years of life lost, and 3·8% of disability-adjusted life-years worldwide in 2010.

They based their analysis on body-mass index (BMI) a measure of weight and height.  Individuals with a BMI of 30 or more are considered obese, while those a BMI of 25 to 29.9 are considered overweight, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Worldwide, the proportion of adults with a BMI of 25 or greater increased between 1980 and 2013 from 28·8% to 36·9% in men, and from 29·8% to 38·0% in women. In the US, 87 million individuals or 27.2% were obese according to study conducted in 2013 (Gallup). The prevalence of obesity has increased in children and adolescents worldwide.  In 2013, 23·8% of boys and 22·6% of girls were overweight or obese in developed countries, while in developing countries 12·9% of the boys and 13·4% of the girls were overweight or obese. One of the “most troubling” findings of the study is that the percentage of overweight or obese children and teenagers has increased by nearly 50 percent since 1980.   In the US alone, nearly 30 percent of the children and teens are either obese or overweight, up from 19 percent in 1980.

More than half of the world’s 671 million obese people live in the U.S., China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan and Indonesia.  During the more than three decades studied, the largest increase in obesity rates were in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Honduras and Bahrain for women and New Zealand, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. for men.  In adults, the estimated prevalence of obesity exceeded 50% in men in Tonga and in women in Kuwait, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Libya, Qatar, Tonga, and Samoa.  Since 2006, the increase in adult obesity in developed countries has slowed down.  

Because obesity can raise the risk of diabetes, osteoarthritis, heart disease and cancer, among other health-threatening conditions, strategies to correct it such increase physical activity, decrease of total caloric intake and selectivity the foods eaten are needed as obesity represents a major global health challenge.

Addendum:  A study based on review of the health records of 65,000 that was published in JAMAPediatrics (9/29/14) suggests infants and young children with repeated exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics at ages 0-23 months are associated with childhood obesity.