A key focus of my blog is Health/Wellness. A major consideration for all our lives is how long we expect to live. There are numerous factors affecting this today. The following contributed post is entitled, Could Life Expectancy Actually Start Falling?
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Even before the pandemic, medical professionals around the world stood aghast as statistics revealed the first decline in life expectancy for nearly two centuries. Between 2018 and 2019, life expectancy fell by 1.5 years, pushing us back to where we were in 2003, when the internet was barely five years old and Facebook hadn’t been born yet.
Increases in life expectancy continued almost unbroken since the industrial revolution. In the middle of the 19th century, life was so tough that the average man was lucky to reach the age of forty, with women not doing much better at 43. Back then, a lot of people didn’t die of old age. Instead, infectious disease, accidents and poisonings topped the list of killers.
Unfortunately, the rise in life expectancy has come to a halt. And what’s more, many of the declines look like they are set in.
Why Is Life Expectancy Faltering?
All the way back in 2013, statisticians noted that increases in life expectancy had begun to slow down. The prevailing theory at the time was that it was just a blip, but that no longer seems to be the case. It’s not just a matter of stagnation either. Today, the life expectancy for people over the age of 65 is now six months shorter than it was a decade ago, despite all the advances we’ve seen in technology.
A common claim is that humanity has reached its peak longevity, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. There are countries, like Japan, outside of the West, that continue to see rising average life expectancies. What’s more, it seems strange that countries like the US and UK would peak in the mid 2010s and then go into decline if it was solely based on biological factors.
No doubt there is an upper limit to life expectancy, but that doesn’t carry much explanatory weight.
The other leading theory is that there is something wrong with the environment. People are now living in conditions, the theory goes, that are worse for their health than they were in the past.
Modern Killers
This is a sentiment that health executive, Michael Rashid, holds to firmly. He believes that we’re caught in the middle of a perfect storm of health issues, everything from obesity to the current opioid crisis. There are so many factors ravaging our health that, as a population, sustained increases in life expectancy just aren’t possible.
Because of the influence of environmental factors, health inequality is likely to continue to get worse over time. Those who know the science of longevity and apply it in their lives will live longer, while those who can’t follow it, or ignore it, will see their lives shortened.
Lack Of Care For The Elderly
Whether the problem is societal or something solely affecting the older generations is not well known. Problems with social care for seniors appeal to be compounding pressures on life expectancy, but the data are still coming in. Increasing suicides may be another issue but, again statisticians are still trying to work out how they will affect the overall picture.