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from the If-you-can't-afford-the-medical-care dept.
A new study found that more than one million US deaths per year—including many young and working-age adults—could be avoided if the US had mortality rates similar to its peer nations:
In 2021, 1.1 million deaths would have been averted in the United States if the US had mortality rates similar to other wealthy nations, according to a new study led by a School of Public Health researcher.
Published in the journal PNAS Nexus, the study refers to these excess deaths as "Missing Americans," because these deaths reflect people who would still be alive if the US mortality rates were equal to its peer countries.
Comparing age-specific death rates in the U.S. and 21 other wealthy nations from 1933 through 2021, the authors find that current death rates in the US are much higher than other wealthy nations, and the number of excess U.S. deaths has never been larger.
"The number of Missing Americans in recent years is unprecedented in modern times," says study lead and corresponding author Jacob Bor, associate professor of global health and epidemiology.
Nearly 50 percent of all Missing Americans died before age 65 in 2020 and 2021. According to Bor, the level of excess mortality among working age adults is particularly stark. "Think of people you know who have passed away before reaching age 65. Statistically, half of them would still be alive if the US had the mortality rates of our peers. The US is experiencing a crisis of early death that is unique among wealthy nations."
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a sharp spike in mortality in the US—more so than in other countries—but the new findings show that the number of excess US deaths has been accelerating over the last four decades. Bor and colleagues analyzed trends in US deaths from 1933 to 2021, including the impact of COVID-19, and then compared these trends with age-specific mortality rates in Canada, Japan, Australia, and 18 European nations.
The US had lower mortality rates than peer countries during World War II and its aftermath. During the 1960's and 1970's, the US had mortality rates similar to other wealthy nations, but the number of Missing Americans began to increase year by year starting in the 1980's, reaching 622,534 annual excess U.S. deaths by 2019. Deaths then spiked to 1,009,467 in 2020 and 1,090,103 in 2021 during the pandemic. From 1980 to 2021, there were a total of 13.1 million Missing Americans.
[...] "We waste hundreds of billions each year on health insurers' profits and paperwork, while tens of millions can't afford medical care, healthy food, or a decent place to live," says study senior author Steffie Woolhandler, Distinguished Professor at the School of Urban Public Health at Hunter College, City University of New York. "Americans die younger than their counterparts elsewhere because when corporate profits conflict with health, our politicians side with the corporations."
[...] "The US was already experiencing more than 600,000 Missing Americans annually before the pandemic began, and that number was increasing each year. There have been no significant policy changes since then to change this trajectory," he says.
"While COVID-19 brought new attention to public health, the backlash unleashed during the pandemic has undermined trust in government and support for expansive policies to improve population health," said Bor. "This could be the most harmful long-term impact of the pandemic, because expansion of public policy to support health is exactly how our peer countries have attained higher life expectancy and better health outcomes."
Journal Reference:
Jacob Bor, Andrew C Stokes, Julia Raifman, et al., Missing Americans: Early death in the United States—1933–2021, PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 6, June 2023, pgad173, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad173
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday November 17 2023, @12:56PM (7 children)
A very small number. We're still V A S T L Y ahead by total mass.
Unfortunately not kidding or snarky. I'm getting to the age where I see a huge difference in health status between the fat non-athletic pill-popper high-carb types and my gym bros. You know you're getting old when people express absolute shock that you're not on any prescriptions and your test results are good. I feel like I'm about 25, no aches and pains, no weird inflammations from processed / vegetable foods, etc.
Fat folks my age are already dead or I see them dying fast yet in slow motion. And the population is only about 75% overweight/obese, so ...
All I really do that's "special" to stay healthy is lift weights for 3 hours per week MWF and eat as little carbs and hyperprocessed junk as realistically possible and avoid addictions (except for shitposting on SN, that I'm still addicted to). If I'm at someone's birthday party like last September, I'll eat a greasy sugary small piece of cake to fit in, but I don't buy that kind of shit for myself on a regular basis, and I certainly don't carb-load every three hours like fat Americans. How do you people get anything done if you eat a large high carb meal every three hours, resulting in 300+ blood sugar and sleepy symptoms an hour later then the blood sugar crashes two hours later and they get ravenous even though they certainly don't need the total calories. Like watching drug fiends except its white sugar not white cocaine.
Its wild when I go from the gym where most people are athletic-ish to run some errands at Walmart or something on the way home and holy F are Americans in general fat. And that fat kills them young.
I seem to remember interesting stats from the recent virus outbreak(s) where the fatality rate was ridiculously high over 450 pounds and ridiculous low under 250 pounds. But the fatality ratio is like that in "normal" daily life; the odds of me dying before 65 at my present weight are damn near zero based on predictions using my triglyceride and HDL and A1C numbers and my weight, but plenty of people my age just aren't going to make it to 65. Well, enjoy your oreos every two hours and multiple liters of corn syrup soda per day while you can, lol.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday November 17 2023, @01:02PM
Speculation that just popped into my mind, like a sci fi novel plot: The popularity of "zombie" fiction is expressing an unconscious anxiety about fat Americans dying young.
Their uncontrollable carb addiction is like the zombie desire to eat brains. Feed feed feed.
"They're all dying off around a couple healthy survivors" feels like the last time I went to Walmart. The grocery store ain't much better odds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2023, @03:36PM
Not sure if my guess is true but it definitely ain't gonna help when so many US folk are obese.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday November 17 2023, @04:34PM (1 child)
Well, enjoy your oreos every two hours and multiple liters of corn syrup soda per day while you can, lol.
Flash back to a scene of me in the grocery store. This woman asked me for help getting soda off the top shelf, because I'm tall enough to reach it and she isn't... yet she weighed more than me, probably by a wide margin. There's that part of you that wants to say "No, you're killing yourself with that shit", but you don't because it's not polite and somebody else will just get it for her anyway. It just sits there in my mind and kind of festers until the topic comes up.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday November 18 2023, @01:21AM
Scary thought, not to ruin your sleep tonight, but she was probably flirting with you LOL.
(Score: 1) by cereal_burpist on Saturday November 18 2023, @04:31AM
I feel the same way. And your post reminded me of another atrocity: Every day, the drive-thru of every fast food joint is filled with vehicles. And often the line is backed up into the street.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday November 18 2023, @05:34PM (1 child)
Odd, I've been a desk worker most of my adult life, never went out of my way to do any physical excersize (my bicycle is electric), but I'm 71 and on no medications at all, and people who see me ask how I can look so young.
I tell them I chose my grandparents wisely. My Great Uncle Oscar (Dad's uncle) started smoking cigarettes at age 12, stopped when he got a skin cancer on his lip at age 82, and died ten years later at age 92. My Grandma, his sister, lived to be 99. Dad died at age 82 from cancer; he was an electrical lineman and nobody told them transformer oil was about the most carcinogenic substance there is, all his co-workers died 20 years younger.
On the other side of the family, my Mom made it to 92. Her sisters were all but one in her nineties, and Uncle Joe lived to 103.
Excersize is way overrated. Genetics gets no props at all. People are fools.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday November 18 2023, @05:52PM
Partially. There's a pretty good book titled "The Barbell Prescription", one of those medical textbooks that's 1/6th endnotes to recent medical journal articles, to summarize about 300 pages of biochemistry, several critical blood biochemistry markers seem to strongly depend on the ratio of muscle to fat in the body, so you can improve that either by diet lowering body fat or exercise increasing muscle mass. I think the MD/PHD researcher who wrote it was Dr Sullivan but perhaps not.
I suppose it makes practical sense, if someone eats a shitty high carb diet then when they binge if they have more muscle the muscle can "soak up" the glucose as muscle tends to do, instead of overworking their kidneys to pee it out or explode their trigs leading to fat. The fructose is still going to be a gut-punch to the liver but, its better, at least.