Americans are living longer than they ever have (77.9 years), while deaths from heart disease, cancer and diabetes continue to drop, the government reported today.
Also, for the first time, life expectancy for black men reached 70 years, though they’ve finally reached that milestone as much as 10 years after other groups had, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Despite a continuing increase in life expectancy over the past decade, Americans still rank behind such countries as Japan, Australia and Canada when it comes to longevity, according to the latest CDC figures.
Robert Anderson, of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, said Americans are living longer because of significant declines in many of the leading causes of death — including heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke.
Women continued to outlive men by 5.1 years in 2007 — the same gap as in 2006.
The CDC also reported that the infant mortality rate for 2007 was 6.77 infant deaths per 1,000 live births — a 1.2 percent increase from 2006. But Anderson said that the one-year increase wasn’t statistically significant.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/1724226,life-expectancy-record-081909.article#
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