Good news! You’ve gained 1.1 years!
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Some good news…
The proportion of Americans with “poor diet quality” has decreased from about 49 percent to 37 percent, according to a new study.
The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine this week, found that between 1999 and 2020, “the proportion of U.S. adults with poor diet quality decreased from 48.8% to 37.4%.”
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4728511-americans-poor-diet-decrease-study/
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https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/qhdb0e/til_asianamericans_have_a_life_expectancy_of_873/
Asian Americans in NJ/MA/“rich states”/the northeast live longer than Asians do in ANY country, including Japan
[northeast also selects for non-fobby more resourceful asians]
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There is no mystery here, our diet is horrific. This has so much data supporting it; its not even worth debating. Btw, Immigrants from Asian and European countries that maintain their healthy homeland diet live far longer than natives.
Americans who isolate themselves from the American diet such as Seventh-day Adventists of Loma Linda live long as well.
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Very true, especially for older Asians. I would just add that many younger Asians have unfortunately adopted the American diet, or eat Americanized versions of Asians cuisine.
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KarlT
#46
I’ve said it before, I’ll say to again. Life expectancy in the US has nothing to do with the quality of medical care. It is a social problem. Diet, exercise, violence, etc.
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The medical system is a bit of the problem … but with 3 trillion of the 4 trillion dollars being spent yearly, ends up being on lifestyle caused diseases (which includes lack of consistent sensible evidenced based universal care). The amount of resources being wasted is massive, and could be used better elsewhere if people adopted healthy practices. This would include just a tiny fraction on providing universal basic medical care.
We also have an issue of spending massive amounts at end of life on high cost, low value care.
@KarlT will well know in the ER, when a family comes in to a resuscitation bay and you are looking after their 80 year old parent who has dementia so badly they can’t even recognize their children, wasting away with contractures and bed sores … and now with septic shock - and you ask them about code status/resuscitation status — they invariably want “everything done.”
In Australia, where I worked for 9 years, this question wouldn’t have been asked, there is no situation where this patient would be eligible to use an ICU bed as this would be ethically and financially irresponsible.
The problem is American culture, sense of unlimited resources, very little sense of responsibilities, and maximal sense of rights. It creates the perfect storm for bad health (and other things). Still love America and choose to make it home … but we will continue to see health outcomes worsen, and expenses go up.
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AnUser
#48
Violence and many health problems is probably related to alcohol. Cigarettes is probably also one part of it.
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Honestly, I think the first step would be to have a fully paid (by the government) health screening for every American at age 40, 45, 50, and 55 to identify common treatable diseases (diabetes, CVD, etc…) and then issue low-cost yet effective treatments for free (Metformin, statin, etc…) This would probably lead to improved health, longevity, and lower costs for the government and hospital systems as more people treated their diseases earlier.
It might even lead to a saner society as people suffer from less cognitive decline. 
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KarlT
#50
@DeStrider An interesting idea. I wonder if all the people who currently don’t exercise or eat right, would change their behavior or take their medication? It would probably help. Too much money involved to get food manufacturers to change.
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Looks like the UK may catch up to us:
The Report:
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not completely accurate (italy is too uniformly dark green) , but still surprising well
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Yeah. Maybe. I can just see the wild-eyed cholesterol deniers gratefully gobbling up statins, getting vaccinated and whatnot. If the gubment is paying for it, it’s gotta be a conspiracy to effect mind control.
While access to affordable medical care and healthy food is a factor, the biggest determinant in health outcomes is quality of education and trust in institutions.
Some of it is cultural. Compare the traditional diets of the Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Japanese, Chinese etc. and f.ex. the Southern Cooking from the Stroke Belt. If you’re used to healthy eating at home, for generations, you don’t have to have massive educational health campaigns explaining that it’s not healthy to feed your kid chips, fries, soda and hamburgers.
Throw in poor general education and health education in particular and a population that distrusts the goverment and the healthcare system, and you have wide acceptance of conspiracies and poor health behaviors.
For example in Japan, the population takes government health mandates very seriously, and is compliant. The US doctor is just as good if not better than the Japanese - the problem is with the patient population.
Clearly something should be done, but it’s a long way up.
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