Report faults smoking, obesity for U.S. lifespan shortfall

“Fifty years ago,” a summary of the report says, “smoking was much more widespread in the United States than in Europe or Japan: a greater proportion of Americans smoked and smoked more intensively than was the case in other countries. The health consequences of this behavior are still playing out in today’s mortality rates.”

The nation’s shorter lifespan, along with its higher infant mortality rate, were a factor in the healthcare reform debate. About 18,000 Americans die every year because they’re not insured, the Institute of Medicine estimated in 2002, even though the U.S. spends much more on healthcare both in total spending and as percentage of GDP.

“Certainly,” a summary of the report states, “the lack of universal access to health care in the United States has increased mortality and reduced life expectancy.”

The report, however, says other factors may be more important. Obesity, for example, “may account for a fifth to a third of the shortfall of life expectancy in the United States relative to the other countries studied.”

If they make it to 65, however, Americans fare better, thanks to Medicare. 

“For the main causes of death at older ages — cancer and cardiovascular disease — available indicators do not suggest that the U.S. health care system is failing to prevent deaths that would elsewhere be averted. In fact, cancer detection and survival appear to be better in the United States than in most other high-income countries. Survival rates following a heart attack also are favorable in the United States.”

The report was requested by the Health and Human Services Department’s National Institute on Aging, which asked a panel of experts to investigate the troubling trend.