We Live Longer Than Our Ancestors

Life expectancy in the United States has increased to almost 78 years, the country's highest on record, amid a downturn in deaths from heart disease, cancer, and stroke, according to new federal estimates.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics said in a report that a child born in the United States in 2005 can expect to live 77.9 years, up from 77.8 in 2004 and continuing a rise dating back decades. U.S. life expectancy was 75.8 years in 1995 and 69.6 years in 1955.

While the numbers are better than they used to be, the United States sadly doesn't take as good care of its citizens as most other industrialized nations. The citizens of 41 other countries live longer than do U.S. citizens. The U.S. infant mortality rate is also higher than many other rich nations.

You can read the details at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070912/ts_nm/lifespan_usa_dc.

Comments

[Happy Dae]

Ahhh, statistics! I think most Genealogy Software can now give an average age of the people in your family tree, too. Gosh, if I'd known I was going to live THIS long, I'd have eaten my veggies as a lad.

Now about those statistics: do these include the aborted children? Do they include only the citizens of the US or anyone living here? Whatever the agenda, it seems you can find (or create) a statistic to support it.

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com/ssg1.htm

[Marilynn B]

"... a downturn in deaths from heart disease, cancer, and stroke, according to new federal estimates"

Oh, yes, and we can believe everything the guvmint tells us! I'm just not buying this, based on personal experience of family, friends and acquaintances and observations of genealogical data (my own and others) going back to early 19th century. Just in my 63 years, the numbers of people dropping dead from the diseases named above has noticeably increased. Cancer is epidemic, as is cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, asthma, childhood leukemia, not to mention "modern" diseases like AIDS and Lyme's. What inflates the life expectancy figures is the number of unhealthy people kept alive by drugs, surgery, and extreme measures, while quality of life tanks. This country seriously needs a new medical paradigm---one not based on cold statistics.

"... do these include the aborted children?" No, because then the numbers would be in the basement! However, the main thing that brought the numbers so low over a century ago were infant and child mortality rates. As I am indexing the 1900 census, every time I see the numbers under "mother of how many" and "number living" I give a silent cheer when they match. Too often they don't

[George MacDonald]

Our USMA class of 1946 passed its half-way mark about two years ago when most of us were 81 years old.
Our Harvard class of 1946 passed that midpoint several years earlier and two years ago about 35% were still alive.
Both classes were born predominantly in 1924. An apprieciable number of the Harvard class died in the last six months of WWII whereas the cadets were not involved in active compaigning at that time.

[Linda Masden Vixie]

Re: "the United States sadly doesn't take as good care of its citizens . . . " What about the citizens taking care of themselves? So many of the diseases Americans die from, or at least die from early, are largely preventable by lifestyle choices. I'm a big believer in personal responsibility. There's nothing in the Constitution about the government being responsible for the health care of its citizens.

[George VanDelinder]

I am confused about why present generations live longer than those of previous generations. For instance, before the world of mechanization and pesticides, people exercised more from building their own houses and barns, walking to where they needed to go, and grew and ate organic foods free from pesticides. This is the same advise doctors give us today to stay healthy. Why, then, are we living longer?