Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women

[MountainLaurel]

For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.

In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.

The downward trend is evident in places in the Deep South, Appalachia, the lower Midwest and in one county in Maine. It is not limited to one race or ethnicity but it is more common in rural and low-income areas. The most dramatic change occurred in two areas in southwestern Virginia (Radford City and Pulaski County), where women's life expectancy has decreased by more than five years since 1983.

The trend appears to be driven by increases in death from diabetes, lung cancer, emphysema and kidney failure. It reflects the long-term consequences of smoking, a habit that women took up in large numbers decades after men did, and the slowing of the historic decline in heart disease deaths.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/21/AR2008042102406.html?hpid=topnews

Looks like there is a similar, but not as pronounced, trend for men as well.

[femrap]

1. I've thought about this....

I figured we would see this soon. One theory: environmental crap in air and water is starting to catch up with us...and since women's bodies are smaller, this crap could have a quicker effect than on men.

Also our food supply...which is now filled with all kinds of chemicals. I often tell my mother that her generation (she is 80) will be the one that lives the longest...mine was the first to be fed all of that processed food. I kid her and say that all of those nitrates and nitrates from bologna sandwiches are killing me ever so slowly! lol. Fast food began with my generation as well....but we didn't eat it to the extent that it is eaten today. But I remember the weekly meal at McDonald's.

Yep, the US of A has peaked along with oil....we're on the downside now. Oh...people could go to a doctor when I was young...not now. I think it cost $25.00 for my birth in '53.

Monsanto is going to kill us all.