male life expectancy jumps big time.

[texdav]

My gues is when you have fewer men workig with shovels etc at the bottom of a pit both the number not kiled in the ditch and the number nt ahve injuries that kil them early is redcued. i think smokig deaths to some degree are made up for toher unheatlhy habit on such things as heart disease reminding high.Bit one alos has to think that heart disase like heart failure cause is more common as peol,e live longer also.In fact it reallt hard to determine mnay disase death accuartely in poast death reports.But we know that heart disase is more commen at earlier age as wellas thongs like diabetes.Both are porjections of earlier death if science isn't able to control the effects.One reason to see medical cost rising really in early age amoung the popualtion.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by TuborgP

1. Heart disease
2. Cancer
3. Unintentional injuries
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases
5. Stroke
6. Diabetes
7. Suicide
8. Influenza and pneumonia
9. Kidney disease
10. Alzheimer's disease

Some of those have contributing factors or conditions [high B.P., sugar levels, etc] that can be controlled by diet or lifestyle.

Early diagnosis and treatment would help with some.

You can never fully avoid accidents, and some diseases hit you from out of nowhere and drop you quick; so there is always a risk.

[ifa]

"From 1900 through 2007, life expectancy at birth increased from 46 to 75 years for men. Life expectancy at age 65 rose from 12 to 17 years among men during this period. (Source: Health,United States, 2009)

Between 1990 and 2007, life expectancy at birth increased 3.5 years for males."

The great increase in lifespan from birth between 1900 and 2007 was probably mostly from antibiotics, since bacterial infections might have killed a lot of infants in the past. The after-65 lifespan only increased by 5 years, for men, in that period. We can't tell from this data when that increase occurred.

There was a 3.5 year increase between 1990 and 2007, for from-birth lifespan (men). But we can't tell from this data if that was mostly a decrease in infant mortality.

So, it is very possible that any recent after-65 lifespan increase was very small, and possibly could be entirely accounted for by a decrease in cigarette smoking.

Therefore, the new miracle drugs might have had absolutely nothing to do with longer lives. And new diagnostic tests and surgical technology probably had very little effect.

And therefore, maybe we should stop worrying so much about health insurance, since the benefits we get from the medical industry are minimal. We only need them for emergency surgery or antibiotics.

[LauraC]

I know an awful lot of active 80 year olds...of course, if they were dead I wouldn't know them...but when I say "active" I really mean it. They are constantly on the go - taking classes, on bowling teams, walking, belonging to an aquatics (think that's what you call pool dancing), going to meetings, volunteering, biking, going to the gym (some have a personal trainer), traveling, doing outdoor photography. I actually have a photo of some older man (has to be late 70s to early 80s, keeping up with a young woman at the end of some local running marathon...and they do this stuff in our heat, too.

I have to believe they all took an active lifestyle into retirement.