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Posted on 11/30/2018 6:49:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It's been a given since America began industrializing in the mid-1800s that each generation would live longer than the one that came before. Since 2014, however, an alarming reversal has taken place, with life expectancy slipping each year. How can that be?
The release of the U.S. mortality data has typically been a humdrum affair, with little notice by the major media. Not now. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their data for 2017. The average American can expect to live to 78.6 years, the CDC said, down from 78.7 years in 2016.
But that small drop is deceptive, since the decline is centered mainly in men. Women's life expectancy has remained unchanged since 2014, while men have seen their lifespans fall from 76.5 in 2014 to 76.1 this year.
The last time such a drop happened was from 1915 to 1918. That period coincided with World War I and the deadly Spanish flu epidemic, which together claimed 792,000 American lives.
What's happening?
Shocking Trends
While some of it is conjecture, a number of shocking trends have plainly emerged.
For one, suicide rates have soared by 33% from 1999 to 2017, data show. Suicide rates are at their highest in 50 years. Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death for ages 10 to 34, and the fourth leading cause for 35 to 54.
And the opioid epidemic is taking a toll, as well. Deaths due to drug overdose have surged 10% in the last year alone, from 63,632 in 2016 to 70,237 in 2017. Since 1999, the drug overdose rate is up 255%.
Interestingly, as one might expect, the biggest increase in death rates came among the older millennial cohort, from 25 to 34.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Demographic change probably has nothing to do with this since we are all exactly the same. sarc
Nihilism might have something to do with suicide and drugs.
It is tough to survive in the real world when you have a mantel full of participation trophies for half-assed attempts throughout your childhood.
There aren’t that many “safe spaces” in the real world, if you cannot create them yourself.
Seeking life’s answers in materialism is ultimately an empty dead-end.
Y'all gonn'a get sick o' me sayin' it, but it's true ...
public schools.
Greenie weenie, sexually confused empty skulls of mush have no desire to buy real cars and drive.
They stay in place and do nothing.
Americans have always been do-ers.
And we grew up dreaming of driving at 16.
Well that and the fact that most youth and young adults in this sick society believe that over-eating/over-drinking and looking like a tatted up freak is somehow normal.
That and the grinder/tinder hook-up culture of putting pleasure as an idol might weigh heavily on life expectancy.
Expect suicides to continue to skyrocket.
They are having their patrimony eaten by low IQ manual laborers that are flooding this nation from every corner of the globe. Plus, they’re being taught that everything bad in the world is their fault and that they must be ‘agents of change’ to atone.
It seems the media is trying to explain the Life Expectancy Decline by pointing to Opioids and Suicides.
Not enough people are dying from drugs and suicides to affect Life Expectancy.
I suspect the real reason for the decline in Life Expectancy is the importation of millions of people from hell-hole countries who grew up underfed and over-diseased.
As a result these millions of new people now living in the USA will not live as long as those people who were born and raised in a clean and well-fed America.
Life expectancy should be "natural life".
I don't think that's it at all. I think it's a lack of hope - for a variety of reasons. Our society is incredibly cynical at this point in time, and incredibly divided. If you are a white male you are being told you are the problem, and that your days are numbered (the left’s words, not mine). As a man you are a ‘potential rapist’, a ‘misogynous sexist pig’, and are privileged - by virtue of your skin color, and thus whatever you do achieve is only because you have been privileged.
That's just one aspect of things. How many on this board are truly optimistic about the future, or feel the same about our country being a place of liberty and justice for all? If you feel pessimistic as an adult, why should young adults feel any different?
High Fructose Corn Syrup is in everything!
Notice the liquor and beer company are all selling flavored variants of products they previously couldn’t keep in stock for generations to cultivate new young customers? Cherry and honey flavored whiskey, etc. bleck!
So if you don’t suicide or do drugs (both a form of mental illness), your life expectancy is higher.
Destruction of the middle class thru mass immigration and disastrous trade policies.
I think smartphone/social media culture is probably a huge part of this. Social media pretty much did the opposite from what the term implies from what I can see. Whole generations that don’t know how to occupy themselves besides being passively entertained by screens. They can see what they want to 24 hours a day no matter where they are, as well as what some person in China thinks about whatever new outrage occurred in the 24 hour news cycle.
Freegards
No Jesus, No Peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace!
Thank a Democrat for removing FATHERS from The American Family and God from Schools and The Town Square.
And - thank the REST of us for allowing it! Grrrr!
I shared this article with my “friends” on FB. I’m sure half of my “friends” will block or unfriend me because it’s a serious topic that we all need to care about.
We have achieved John Lennon’s “Imagine”
No Religion
No Heaven
No Hell
No Possessions
Nothing to live or die for.
It makes life quite meaningless, especially if something goes wrong in it.
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