LIFE EXPECTACNCY: Going down
April 10, 2019 • 1 min read
Surprised? Didn’t think so. What with the flourishing obesity epidemic and our rampant sugar and fat consumption driving up rates of metabolic disease and cancer.
Americans born last year are expected to live to just above 78 years old – a drop from the predicted life expectancy issued last year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Quick fact: The average US citizen consumes more than 126 grams of sugar per day, which is slightly more than three 12-ounce (350 mL) cans of Coca-Cola. That’s more than twice the average sugar intake of all 54 countries observed by Euromonitor.
That other epidemic – opioids
While most of us will either curse cancer with our last breath, or fall to the floor hoping vainly that charitable passersby will chest thump our fat-encrusted tickers back to life, it is overdosing drug users who are dragging down average life expectancy.
More than 70,000 people in the US died of overdoses last year – an increase of nearly ten percent.
In slightly better news, the US Centers for Disease Control says women will continue to outlive men.