Life Expectancy and Longevity

Overweight is OK if you're over 65

This study from the Archives of Internal Medicine looked disability and mortality rates over five years in 13,000 Americans who were over age of 65.  The study concludes with the sentence "Disability-free life expectancy is greatest among subjects [over the age of 65] with a BMI of 25 to less than 30."   

I have commented before that being "overweight" (BMI 25.0 o 29.9) is less risky, has less mortality, and less disability than conventional wisdom would have you believe.  This is especially true in people ove the age of 65.   The real health risks are seen in people of all ages with BMIs over 35.  Here is a link to a BMI calculator.   

As a society we have a real problem with real obesity--but we do not have a real problem with overweight.  We would be better served and more efficient to focus our efforts on the morbidly obese who are at very high risk of very serious and life threatening and disabling diseases.

Stay well.   

Boomers less healthy than their parents

Who knew?  The very good Health and Retirement Study, following 20,000 Americans through middle age to retirment, is finding that boomers are not as healthy as their parents.   

Morbid obesity, diabetes, and life expectancy

The very fattest Americans are getting fatter faster than anyone else. 

The number of people who are severely obese with a BMI of 40 or greater increased 50% from 2000 to 2005.   

Documentation of the diabetes epidemic

This week’s Lancet contains an extremely important and well written article on the steeply increasing incidence (new cases per year) and prevalence (total cases at one time) of diabetes a population study of Ontario Canada between 1995 and 2005. 

This obesity-diabetes epidemic will definitely  impact the previously increasing life expectancy.  Dr. Olshansky et al. were correct when they predicted that obesity epidemic may cause a decline in the life expectancy.  The key findings are:

Living well while we're alive

Sure we are living longer--but should that be our primary objective?  I think not.  Our goal should be live in better health and with more meaning while we are alive.   How do we do that?   

Working 65-year-old males 1850 to 2000

The table below shows the percentage of men over the age of 65 who are still working.   Even in 1950, 50% of the men older than 65 were actively at full-time work.  Wow.

Age 65, the age of retirement and Social Security, is an artificial line-in-the-sand that Bismark of Germany drew in 1885 and we have not had the courage to change. 

But our lives will be drastically different and longer than any prior generation of 65-year olds in the history of the world.  When Bismark drew the line in the sand, 2% of the population lived to age 65 and then they lived an average of only 2 years.  Today, a 65-year old can expect to live nearly ten years longer than his own parents could have expected when they were 65. 

Life expectancy calculators

How do you build a life expectancy calculator?  What exactly does a life expectancy calculator tell you? And, what does a life expectancy calculator not tell you?  Let’s look inside a life expectancy calculator. 

What can one person do to live longer?

Dr. Vaupel, Director of Max Plank Institute for Demographic Research and a Professor at Duke University, believes that life expectancies will continue to increase at the steady pace of 2.5 years per decade. 

The health of 65-year olds is now more divergent than ever before

The health of 65-year olds is now more divergent than ever before.  Ever, as in ever in history.   ,