The Lancet just published a report—actually, a series of seven papers—known as the Global Burden of Disease. It’s a kraken, a beast, a megillah of data, with contributions from experts in more than 300 institutions in 50 countries. The good news: you’re living longer. The bad news: only about half of those new years will be healthy.
There are many takeaways here, but we’ll recap just four of them:
- Infectious diseases, maternal and childhood diseases and malnutrition are all down. Fewer deaths, less illness than two decades ago.
- Other diseases (the non-communicable ones like heart disease and cancer) are up, which isn’t surprising because people are going to die of something, and if it isn’t a communicable disease it’ll probably be a non-communicable one. Unless it’s murder (see below).
- Life expectancy is up. A lot. Globally, since 1970, men and women have gained a little more than a decade of overall all life expectancy.
- Those extra years aren’t necessarily golden ones, because of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. (See takeaway number 2).
Those are the headline messages, but some of the most fascinating reading is in the details. For example: the Associated Press points out that murder “is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.” Also, there is a “suicide belt” in Asia. Suicide “is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women” in the band that runs from India to China. And obesity isn’t a First World problem: “Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.”
The longevity statistics for Americans were especially interesting (especially for Americans). Since 1990, the life expectancy for American women has crept up, from 78.6 years to 80.5. For men, the improvement was more dramatic, from 71.7 year to 75.9. Still behind the women, but gaining fast.
But other reports note that the added years aren’t necessarily good ones. “For every year of life expectancy added since 1990, about 9 1/2 months is time in good health. The rest is time in a diminished state — in pain, immobility, mental incapacity or medical support. For people who live to age 50, the added time is ‘discounted’ even further. For every added year they get, only seven months are healthy.”
(That’s the statistical picture: five bad months for seven good ones. In reality, we’re guessing it’s more likely that you’ll find a lot of people in bad health having their lives extended, which means 12 additional months in pain and immobility. And a good number who have extra years in relatively good shape.)
At first glance, the move away from infectious diseases (that can strike you unawares, from the back, against which you have trouble defending yourself) toward diseases that have a behavioral cause (like diabetes or heart disease), sounds like a good thing. Your fate is in your hands, and you can act in a rational way to extend your life.
But that’s not the way it works on this most human of planets, where “public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.”
Image: Four Immortals Saluting Longevity, hanging scroll, located at the National Palace Museum, Taipei. The immortals are (l-r): Shide standing on a broom, Hanshan standing on a banana leaf, Iron-Crutch Li standing on a crutch, and Liu Haichan riding a ‘Chan Chu’ three-footed toad. The being riding the crane is the Longevity Star God. Via Wikimedia Commons.
