Good news: Average life expectancy has continued to climb over the past two decades. The downside is that those extra years are often marked by chronic disease or disability, according to a new analysis published in the Lancet.
In the study, an international team of researchers examined fatal and nonfatal health loss across countries in an effort to help direct global-health policies to improve longevity and quality of life regardless of where a person lives.
HealthDay reports:
The analysis of data from 188 countries found that life expectancy for both sexes increased from just over 65 years in 1990 to 71.5 years in 2013, while healthy life expectancy rose from almost 57 years to slightly more than 62 years.
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"The world has made great progress in health, but now the challenge is to invest in finding more effective ways of preventing or treating the major causes of illness and disability," study author Theo Vos, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a journal news release.
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The rise in overall life expectancy is due to significant declines in illness and death caused by HIV/AIDS and malaria, the researchers said, along with major advances in combating infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and mother and baby health problems.
Earlier this year, Laura Carstensen, PhD, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, spoke at the Big Data in Biomedicine conference about modern society's gains in life expectancy and called it an "unprecedented" time in history. During her presentation, she presented data on the current aging population and what aging might look like in the future.
Previously: A look at aging and longevity in this "unprecedented" time in history, "Are we there yet?" Exploring the promise, and the hype, of longevity research and Living loooooooonger: A conversation on longevity
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