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Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

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Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#51

What precisely is causing Americans to die so much earlier than Europeans? I know obesity, healthcare access and gun violence play a factor, but is there anything else?

This thread (and the accompanying article) are very informative (and damning):

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1641799627128143873?...

Drugs and road accidents are other disproportionate contributors to the US's awful life expectancy.

At the risk of being a wiseass, at least some of this is Americans taking Ben Franklin's aphorism about liberty and safety far too seriously. Sometimes, trading some liberty for safety is entirely sensible.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Testosterone itself shortens life. It's why bodybuilders die younger than any other athlete.

Steroids cause premature death, not testosterone.

"Desserts cause obesity, not cookies."

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#53

What precisely is causing Americans to die so much earlier than Europeans? I know obesity, healthcare access and gun violence play a factor, but is there anything else?

Fentanyl, a male suicide crisis and a strong cultural taboo around male mental health, bad responses to COVID-19, poor medical system, and social attitudes strongly attack tackling health care issues for men as somehow oppressive to women. (Compare and contrast funding for prostate cancer and breast cancer in the USA).

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Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#54

What precisely is causing Americans to die so much earlier than Europeans? I know obesity, healthcare access and gun violence play a factor, but is there anything else?

Add in drug abuse, those are pretty huge (though gun violence isn't a real influencer here, just doesn't put up the numbers heart disease does).

Gun violence is a major influencer of life expectancy in America. The average American would live a couple of years longer without gun deaths (including suicide and accidents).

https://time.com/5471069/guns-life-expectancy/

The reason that it has such an outsized effect is because it tends to happen early in life.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#55

What precisely is causing Americans to die so much earlier than Europeans? I know obesity, healthcare access and gun violence play a factor, but is there anything else?

Despair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_of_despair https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...

The "deaths of despair" narrative has been found really wanting: https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-deaths-of-despair-narrative... and it's probably time to throw it out entirely. The tl;dr is that most of the effect disappears when you use age-adjusted death rates instead of arbitrary buckets (whose average age goes up over time) and adjust for things like obesity, gun violence, and car accidents.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#56

Testosterone causes risky behavior, statistically speaking. It’s not dead men, it’s the car crashes that make insuring 18 year old males so expensive…in but one example…

Aside from risky behavior, are there chemical risks to taking TRT? I've begun considerations into taking it (late 30s)

Make sure to consult a doctor. I wouldn’t trust what random people on the internet say.

With that being said, the first thing the doc will ask is what you hope to gain from TRT. Often the answer to that question is a mix of diet/exercise/sleep which you should try to address first. And if you’ve truly got that sorted, then it’s time to loop in a professional.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#57
For comparison, in Australia (population ~ 26.47 million):

    Life expectancy at birth was 81.2 years for males and 85.3 years for females in 2020-2022
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/life-exp...

    In 2020, Australia recorded a lower than expected death rate as public health measures put in place to restrict the spread of COVID-19 also resulted in a reduction of deaths across a number of other causes.

    In 2021, the death rate increased but was still lower than pre-pandemic levels.

    In 2022, Australia's pattern of mortality differed to that of the first two years of the pandemic and the number of deaths increased by almost 20,000 deaths from 2021, with almost 10,000 of these being due to COVID-19.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#58

Perhaps to be fair we should let men retire earlier or collect larger social security checks, so the average total paid out would be roughly equal?

The numbers given were for someone born today. See full table by age and race here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr023.pdf

At 65 the difference is 2.7 years: A 65 year old man has an expectancy of 81.9, compared against a 65 year old woman expectancy of 84.6.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#59
post #22

What precisely is causing Americans to die so much earlier than Europeans? I know obesity, healthcare access and gun violence play a factor, but is there anything else?

If you want actual analysis of this, I'd suggest: - https://www.slowboring.com/p/tackling-americas-weirdly-short... - https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/americans-are-coping-ourselves...

> Tackling America's weirdly short life expectancy

Shows US higher than Poland.

Okay.

Re: Life expectancy for men in US falls to 73 – six years less than women, study

#60
post #15

Perhaps to be fair we should let men retire earlier or collect larger social security checks, so the average total paid out would be roughly equal?

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> Feminism is the philosophy of cherry-picking

Ironically there are weak arguments generalized from poor statements made by some unthoughtful people in many places.

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