U.S. life expectancy may drop due to obesity

updated 7:46 p.m. ET March 16, 2005

CHICAGO - U.S. life expectancy will fall dramatically in coming years because of obesity, a startling shift in a long-running trend toward longer lives, researchers contend in a report published Thursday.

By their calculations — disputed by skeptics as shaky and overly dire — within 50 years obesity likely will shorten the average life span of 77.6 years by at least two to five years. That’s more than the impact of cancer or heart disease, said lead author S. Jay Olshansky, a longevity researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This would reverse the mostly steady increase in American life expectancy that has occurred in the past two centuries and would have tremendous social and economic consequences that could even inadvertently help “save” Social Security, Olshansky and colleagues contend.

“We think today’s younger generation will have shorter and less healthy lives than their parents for the first time in modern history unless we intervene,” Olshansky said.

Already, the alarming rise in childhood obesity is fueling a new trend that has shaved four to nine months off the average U.S. life span, the researchers say.

With obesity affecting at least 15 percent of U.S. school-age children, “it’s not pie in the sky,” Olshansky said. “The children who are extremely obese are already here.”

The report appears in the New England Journal of Medicine. In an accompanying editorial, University of Pennsylvania demography expert Samuel H. Preston calls the projections “excessively gloomy.”

Opposing forecasts, projecting a continued increase in U.S. longevity, assume that obesity will continue to worsen, but also account for medical advances, Preston said.

Still, failure to curb obesity “could impede the improvements in longevity that are otherwise in store,” he said. Americans’ current life expectancy already trails more than 20 other developed countries.

Sobering statistics
Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, a study co-author, cited sobering obesity statistics:

• Two-thirds of U.S. adults are overweight or obese; one-third of adults qualify as obese.
• Up to 30 percent of U.S. children are overweight, and childhood obesity has more than doubled in the past 25 years.
• Childhood diabetes has increased 10-fold in the past 20 years.

“It’s one thing for an adult of 45 or 55 to develop type 2 diabetes and then experience the life-threatening complications of that — kidney failure, heart attack, stroke — in their late 50s or 60s. But for a 4-year-old or 6-year-old who’s obese to develop Type 2 diabetes at 14 or 16” raises the possibility of devastating complications before reaching age 30, Ludwig said. “It’s really a staggering prospect.”

While national attention is starting to focus on contributors to obesity, including the prevalence of fast-food, soft drinks in schools and cuts in physical education classes, “what we presently lack is a clear, comprehensive national vision for addressing the obesity epidemic,” Ludwig said.

The calculations are a stark contrast with Social Security Administration forecasts for slow improvement in life expectancy, and with projections publicized in 2002 that said the maximum human life span will reach 100 in about six decades. In an interview, Olshansky said he hoped the new research would play a role in the current discussion about overhauling Social Security.

MORE FROM MORE HEALTH NEWS

More Health News Section Front

Teen with upside-down feet takes first steps Lawyer's lost love fuels money redesign quest Transplant recipient completes Yosemite ascent Magnetic migraine zapper shows promise Athletes popping Viagra for an extra boost Boss of body parts ring gets 18-54 years Rabies vaccines in short supply Grab a towel. Desert city is America's sweatiest 3 arrested in illegal kidney transplant ring Floodwaters breed hidden dangers More Health News Section Front   Add More Health News headlines to your news reader: