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.

Alcohol abuse in heart diseases

A study by Whitman et al published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests, that abusing alcohol increases the likelihood of suffering atrial fibrillation, heart attack or congestive heart failure.

The study was based on the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project database of Californians aged 21 and older who had outpatient surgery, emergency room treatment or inpatient hospital care between 2005 and 2009.

 Among 14,727,591 patients, 268,084 (1.8%) had alcohol abuse. After multivariable adjustment, the investigators found that alcohol abusers were twice as likely to have atrial fibrillation; 1.4 times more likely to have a heart attack; and 2.3 times more likely to have congestive heart failure than non alcohol abusers.

The authors concluded that alcohol abuse does increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure.  Given that about 600,000 Americans have a heart attack every year, and an estimated 3 million have atrial fibrillation and about 5.7 million have heart failure, the authors suggest that efforts to moderate alcohol use might result in significant reduction of these common cardiovascular diseases.