SF Chronicle: "Rise in life expectancy not for all groups"

[El Pinko]

http://tinyurl.com/4lbf67

Rise in life expectancy not for all groups
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
Monday, April 21, 2008

(04-21) 19:50 PDT -- A long, steady rise in life expectancy in the United States apparently isn't being shared by everyone, and hasn't been for years, according to a new study. While the overall life expectancy of Americans increased by about seven years between 1960 and 2000, the report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington found a "reversal of fortunes" beginning in the early 1980s for large segments of the population.

The study, published online Monday in the journal PLoS Medicine, reinforces concerns about long-term trends in the health of the American population.

In a broad swath of the nation's midsection - stretching from the Appalachian Mountains westward toward Texas and brushing to northern reaches of the Deep South - lies a concentration of counties where the lengthening of life span either sputtered out or actually declined during the last two decades of the 20th century.

Within these pockets of poorer health, the decline in life span was most pronounced among women. For 20 percent - 1 in 5 - of all American women, the trend in rising life expectancy from 1980 to 1999 stalled or reversed, according to the study. Tobacco use, obesity and diabetes were cited as probable causes.

[truedelphi]

1. I have lost friends right and left and I am in my fifties

It is so very sad.

Breast cancer was so prevalent in Marin County CA that when someone told me that a friend had a newly diagnosed case of cancer, I would say, "Do I need to ask what kind?"

[Why Syzygy]

2. Here's the documentary >

It's dramatic...
http://www.pbs.org/unnaturalcauses/

website >
http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/