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Apr
22
The information here is not simple to digest but the decrease in women’s life expectancy in some 1000 counties included in a study conducted by epidemiologists is being blamed on smoking, blood pressure and obesity. (How about misogyny and telling people about My Beautiful Mommy? Oh – just teasing.) You can see the study here.
From the Washington Post article:
From 1961 to 1983, life expectancy went up everywhere for both sexes. This was largely because the death rate from heart attacks, which had been rising for half a century, began to fall in the late 1960s. There were two reasons.
Huge numbers of people lowered their chances of having a heart attack by modifying “risk factors,” such as smoking, hypertension and high cholesterol. Improvements in medicine — coronary care units, use of aspirin and beta-blocker drugs, and various surgical procedures — greatly increased survival in patients with heart disease. About two-thirds of the longevity gained over the past four decades has come from the decrease in cardiovascular deaths.
These changes were so dramatic that even the poorest and least healthy groups benefited. In fact, counties with low life expectancy in 1961 had steeper rises over the next dozen years than counties that started out with high life expectancy. Overall, the drop in heart attack deaths more than offset rising mortality from cancer, emphysema and diabetes during this period.
By the early 1980s, however, the rapid gains were coming to an end. The low-hanging fruit on the tree of heart-attack prevention and treatment had been picked. Further strides tended to happen mostly in places where people were already healthy and long-lived.
As a consequence, the rise in longevity began to stagnate in places with the least-healthy people. In those counties, life expectancy increased by only one year (from 74.5 to 75.5) between 1983 and 1999, while in the healthiest places the life expectancy of women had reached 83.
It was during this interval that women’s life expectancy fell in nearly 1,000 counties. If one adds counties where it rose only insignificantly, then 19 percent of American women — nearly 1 in 5 — are now experiencing stagnating or falling life expectancy.
What are the health care policy implications here, if any? I’ve got matzah for brains right now.
Hattip Women’s Voices for Change.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:46 pm April 22nd, 2008 in Health Care, Research, Women
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4 Responses to “Women’s life expectancy for significant number of Americans takes unexpected death plunge”
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Shalom Jill,
For a bizarre twist on this story take a look at the Wal-Mart angle.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] Women’s life expectancy for significant number of Americans takes unexpected death plunge Posted in [...]
Moms has shunts, her tickers good, she just turned 70.
“Why do they keep complaining about the number of women in media, if you look at the credits there is always so many woman’s names”
Mom
If you begin to see, all the women in your life expire early then worry about it. Reports are just pieces of paper you can throw them away.
Seriously, though, I took A&P as my science electives in college, so as far as knowledge related to the human body I sit on top of the bell shaped curve. However, I also know that many have no idea of how there bodies function.
The body relies on homeostasis, it will resolve most everything, events are molecular manipulations, and everything complex breaks down to single events.
Drinking enough water and making sure you, heart beats fast often…from exercise and not stress and taking a daily vitamin will extend you life expectancy. Make sure you get daily doses of C and B; as they are not manufactured in the human body.
Feel off? Drink some water, take a vitamin and ride you bike around the neighborhood.
Oengus – I wish it was that easy but with a young nephew just being diagnosed with Crohns and a niece with Diabetes at 15 months (she’s a little older now), what you describe doesn’t work universally. What that is is a great topic for another post, though.