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U.S. life expectancy declines for the first time since 1993
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The high suicide rate among elderly white men, who may suffer from depression:Of the 40,600 Americans who took their own lives in 2012, 6,648 were older than 65.......Seniors, many of them depressed, commit suicide at an alarming rate......"depression almost never leads to suicide by itself." People who attempt or die by suicide can have a variety of problems: relationships breaking down; physical illness; psychosis, which is often overlooked in older patients with depression; pain and disability; financial trouble; legal difficulties; and alcohol or, increasingly in baby boomers, drugs......https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-high-suicide-rate-among-elderly-white-men-who-may-suffer-from-depression/2014/12/05/2bad6ea0-222e-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.ae7e7f55577d
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Wash Post December 8 at 12:01 AM
CDC - report. National Center for Health Statistics/ NCHS -https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm
In 2015, a total of 2,712,630 resident deaths were registered in the United States-86,212 more deaths than in 2014. From 2014 to 2015, the age-adjusted death rate for the total population increased 1.2%, and life expectancy at birth decreased 0.1 year. The age-adjusted death rate increased for non-Hispanic white males, non-Hispanic white females, and non-Hispanic black males. The rate for the total population rose significantly for the first time since 1999 (1).
What are the leading causes of death?
In 2015, the 10 leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and suicide) remained the same as in 2014 (Figure 3). The 10 leading causes accounted for 74.2% of all deaths in the United States in 2015.
From 2014 to 2015, age-adjusted death rates increased for 8 of 10 leading causes of death and decreased for 1. The rate increased 0.9% for heart disease, 2.7% for chronic lower respiratory diseases, 6.7% for unintentional injuries, 3.0% for stroke, 15.7% for Alzheimer's disease, 1.9% for diabetes, 1.5% for kidney disease, and 2.3% for suicide. The rate decreased by 1.7% for cancer. The rate for influenza and pneumonia did not change significantly.The only decrease in age-adjusted death rates among the 10 leading causes of death was for cancer. [But we know in HIV risk for cancers in aging population can increase.]
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-expectancy-declines-for-the-first-time-since-1993/2016/12/07/7dcdc7b4-bc93-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_lifeexpectancy-12am:homepage/story&utm_term=.91a64e440921
For the first time in more than two decades, life expectancy for Americans declined last year - a troubling development linked to a panoply of worsening health problems in the United States.
Rising fatalities from heart disease and stroke, diabetes, drug overdoses, accidents and other conditions caused the lower life expectancy revealed in a report released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics. In all, death rates rose for eight of the top 10 leading causes of death.
Overall, life expectancy fell by one-tenth of a year, from 78.9 in 2014 to 78.8 in 2015, according to the latest data. The last time U.S. life expectancy at birth declined was in 1993, when it dropped from 75.6 to 75.4, according to World Bank data.
The overall death rate rose 1.2percent in 2015, its first uptick since 1999. More than 2.7million people died, about 45percent of them from heart disease or cancer.
Experts cautioned against interpreting too much from a single year of data; the numbers could reverse themselves next year, they said.
"This is unusual, and we don't know what happened," said Jiaquan Xu, an epidemiologist and lead author of the study. "So many leading causes of death increased."
"Mortality rates in middle age have totally flatĀlined in the U.S. for people in their 30s and 40s and 50s, or have been increasing," Case said. "What we really need to do is find out why we have stopped making progress against heart disease. And I don't have the answer to that."
Meara noted that more people need better health care but that "the health-care system is only a part of health." Income inequality, nutrition differences and lingering unemployment all need to be addressed, she said.
According to the new report, males could expect to live 76.3years at birth last year, down from 76.5 in 2014. Females could expect to live to 81.2years, down from 81.3 the previous year.
Life expectancy at age 65 did not fall, another indication that the diseases behind the lower life expectancy occur in middle age or younger. At 65, men can expect to live 18 more years, while women survive an average of 20.6 more years, the data shows.
Heart disease was responsible for more than 633,000 deaths in 2015, up from a little more than 614,000 the previous year. Cancer killed more than 595,000 people.
"We're seeing the ramifications of the increase in obesity," said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "And we're seeing that in an increase in heart disease."
The number of unintentional injuries - which include overdoses from drugs, alcohol and other chemicals, as well as motor vehicle crashes and other accidents - climbed to more than 146,000 in 2015 from slightly more than 136,000 in 2014. Public health authorities have been grappling with an epidemic of overdoses from prescription narcotics, heroin and fentanyl in recent years. Xu said overdose statistics were not yet ready to be released to the public.
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