Life expectancy is tricky.
At birth today, LE in the US is about 78, and falling last yr. The two big causes of fall were Opioid overdose and Covid. The fall was only a few weeks.
LE in Russia for women is 11 years higher than men. Everyone leaps to say vodka, but the few investigations into this did not point at vodka. Since then, more say vodka.
If you reach 65, your LE is not 13 more years to 78. It is about 20 yrs — since you dodged a lot of early death reasons.
The taller you are, the earlier you die on average. It was once thought this data was skewed by warfare (better target), but no, the data holds up for LEs measured beginning past military age. Current theory is bigger people have more cells in which something can go wrong.
Females outlive males. This is true for almost all animals. Likely derives from size of the animal, per above para.
There exists a parameter called HALE — Health Adjusted Life Expectancy. Disability tends to hit about 10 yrs before death.
Heart disease is the #1 killer in the US. Until 65. Then cancer, still outnumbers Covid. For all causes last year, there were 25% more deaths 65+ than in a typical year. They began in the months of March/April before severe lockdown/restrictions were in place. The curves are clear. Oldsters were dying above normal year rates before there was any media splash to scare them away from docs. The 65+ death count last year was about 1% of the total 65+ population.
Most progress in Life Expectancy takes place at the early end, not the late end. Statins and hypertension meds add time to the LE stats. But total years added to the population stat is far more affected by better treatments for infants and children.
There is a long standing presumption that single men die far earlier than married men. This statistic was never clean originally and of late additional studies say single men 65+ have no LE difference vs married. Attributed to automation of nagging to get to doctor appointments and also home nursing benefits on most insurance. There is also a new thing called PapaPals. Read about it.
19-44, single men were 900% more likely to die vs married and the primary cause of early death was infectious disease. Nothing to do with a wife sending them to have their BP checked. The study was done in the AIDS years.
Very interesting stats.
Might be the reason you’ll commonly see little old men and little old ladies. Not too common to hear about big old men and big old ladies.
I’m 85. My doc says I’ll live to be 100.
5’2 118 lb woman who has taken a dozen nutritional supplements every morning for 50 years cuz I read the right books back then.
I love the gym, lift weights and did a mile on the treadmill, every morning until idiot idiot guv closed the gyms for covid. Slowly struggling to get back in shape. Muscular strength is best indicator of living long life.
I also sleep 8 - 10 hours every night. Always have.