101–110 of 213 posts
The US lifespan is decreasing due to opioid overdoses. Similar to Russia in the 90's with alcohol.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With a lot of the fentanyl flowing into the US market being made in China, it's almost like a reverse opium war between the east/west.
Make no mistake: the opioid epidemics is pretty much a self-inflicted harm. It is what happens when you underfund actually useful drug programs and let corruption (relabelled 'lobbying') by pharmaceutical companies run unchecked. So yes, sure, China will make business if they can, but they are not "out there to get you".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably an article's involving the USA increases its perceived on-topicness. Although a large majority of people on here aren't from or in the USA, 'Americans' on here often talk as if it's a 99.5% US discussion taking place on US soil.
The article was not specific to any country
Drop out the recent immigrants, as China has virtually no net immigration. Do the numbers change?
>We use high-quality linked Social Security and Medicare records to estimate life tables for the older U.S. population over the full range of birth regions. In 2000–2009, the foreign-born had a 2.4-year advantage in life expectancy at age 65 relative to the U.S.-born, with Asian-born subgroups displaying exceptionally high longevity. Foreign-born individuals who migrated more recently had lower mortality compared with those who migrated earlier. Nonetheless, we also find remarkable similarities in life expectancy among many foreign-born subgroups that were born in very different geographic and socioeconomic contexts (e.g., Central America, western/eastern Europe, and Africa).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not just obesity that drives poor US life expectancy performance. Mexico's life expectancy is projected to rise meet the US life expectancy by 2030, and they're a nation with a fairly high obesity percentage. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/22/us-life-expectancy-is-low-an... We have to acknowledge that the lack of Universal Healthcare in the US is a big driver of our poor life expectancy showing.
So Mexico has better healthcare for the average person than the US? Hardly. As mentioned elsewhere, overdoses are significantly impacting average lifespan figures.
Many Americans are afraid to go to the doctor because it's incredibly expensive. Many people brush off the early symptoms of serious illnesses because "well, what if it goes away and I get into debt for a small problem?" It's why a lot of Americans with cancer aren't diagnosed until it's too late--that apprehensiveness about getting a simple exam.
When it comes to getting major surgeries or treatment for complex illnesses, yeah, America is great if you've got the cash. But most countries can handle illnesses treated by a quick run of antibiotics or other relatively simple and routine treatments. America is special because it's a wealthy country on paper, yet people brush off illnesses like that and end up dead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you consider 50 years to go from having 99%, while also stabilizing an entire nation's food supply, and becoming an economic super power on par with EU/US then I hate to see what you consider fast. Oh we should also talk about their entire coastal region we’re devistaed by land war and Japanese occupation.
I don't have a source for this, but my understanding is that much of the improvement in China's literacy rate came from the government's redefining of "literate" down to about a 1st or 2nd grade school level. Still, I can't help but be happy at how so many people's lives have improved so greatly in such a short time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pardon my utter ignorance/disbelief - are opioids killing/debilitating that many people to get this result?
60,000+ people are overdosing in the US. The Fentanyl China is dumping into the US killed 20,000 people in 2016, up from 3,000 just a few years prior. By comparison, Cocaine killed 10,000, Heroin killed 15,000, and prescription opiods killed 14,000. The reason it disproportionately impacts life expectancy, is because a lot of the people overdosing are young. If you suddenly have 250,000 people under 40 years of age o…
Congratulations to China and the Chinese people who have managed to measurably improve their livelihoods over the last few decades.
As a developing nation, China should indeed be experiencing an increased lifespan. But under normal circumstances, China's life expectancy increases should be getting closer and close to the curve of developed nations without actually touching - because all countries should be making progress. So the obvious story here is the actual decrease in US life expectancy, a situation broadly reflecting declining living condi…
I also see this at reddit. Depending on the topic, and how it is framed, it seems everyone is either in agreement that life getting better, or that it is getting worse.
For a counter example to your comment, most at this popylar HN thread(1) were in agreement that life is getting much better.
I could be wrong, this has just been my observation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And given the terrible air, water and soil pollution they suffer from, this means the rest must be really, really top notch. Or that we don't have all the metrics.
Also obesity is bad for you. Or just assume China will fix its air in 10 years while Americans (and Chinese) keep getting fatter? Lotta ways you can work these numbers!
Also, China has a ridiculously high smoking rate, with no end in sight for it really. On the other hand, smoking rates in the USA have fallen quite a bit in my lifetime.
So is obesity really that much worse compared to smoking and apocalyptic air pollution? An interesting question to ponder.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. ;p
If you consider 50 years to go from having 99%, while also stabilizing an entire nation's food supply, and becoming an economic super power on par with EU/US then I hate to see what you consider fast. Oh we should also talk about their entire coastal region we’re devistaed by land war and Japanese occupation.