I wonder if our bellicose approach to foreign policy also contributes to the lower life expectancy.

I worked for 3 years in a geriatric ward as a grunt/nurses aid. Here's what I noticed:

1) Look at your history. Lifespan is in your genes. With diet and exercise and healthy habits you can live well in your last years, but you may only be about to add one or two years before keeling over.

2) Modify your lifestyle according to hereditary risk. Were your grandparents or parents lives cut short by cancer, heart attack or stroke? What about diabetes or kidney failure? What of Alzheimer's, dementia, or other mental problems that can rob you of joy in your last years? You don't have to be a health fanatic, but having a lifestyle that cuts your risk of known hereditary problems is smart. You can live up to your full hereditary potential this way.

Hyperbole much RussH?

Hih, who would have thought that being so fat that your body can no longer regulate glucose and insulin and your joints can no longer bear your weight could be a bad thing........

"In the U.S., life expectancy at birth was 80.8 years for women and 75.6 years for men in 2007. In France, life expectancy for women was 84.4 years and 77.4 for men. And in Japan, it was nearly 86 years for women and 79.2 for men."

Hmmm, no mention of the diversified make-up of the US. Most other countries have very homogeneous populations. Japan is a perfect example of this.

jwhite,

"1) Look at your history. Lifespan is in your genes. With diet and exercise and healthy habits you can live well in your last years, but you may only be about to add one or two years before keeling over."

Totally agree.

and you would live in a Totalitarian state..........

I need to order my Super Sized combo meal at the drive thru otherwise I will have to put out my cigarette when I go in. Just love those fries.

I think it's funny how we spend hundreds of billions on Homeland Security in response to 9/11, yet we freely grow and sell tobacco to the same population we're trying so hard to protect, even though it literally kills 100s of thousands of people a year.

Cue: I want my freedom! arguments.

Fine, then where were you when we allowed warrantless wiretaps and full body scans to become the norm? Because I guarantee the same people that detest regulating tobacco were the same ones supporting just that, a lack of freedom.

D.Man, I'm against taxation and regulation of tobacco, against the patriot act, against the scanners and pat-downs at the airports. Hell, if it is government, I'm against it.

I guess you don't like roads, hospitals, schools, jails, sidewalks, internet, radio, or television either.

I like all those things, but you don't need a government for any of them.

That damned Michelle Obama and her lieral plot to make your kids healthy a d living longer. Who wants healthy kids who live long lives?? Only annoying liberals!

I like all those things, but you don't need a government for any of them.

Well none of them have existed on a large scale for non-private consumption in the past without government... Thank the Assyrians for instituting major infrastructure works. How do you feel about police, fire fighters, and soldiers?

Reading this article just makes me want to drive to the nearest mini-mart and get a pack of cigarettes and a 64 oz of soda. Being part of a group health insurance plan, I'm happy others are willing to pay for my poor life choices :)

Who cares to love forever?

Some people who ask to live forever don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy day.

No one wants to live forever. My beef is those who want to be cared for while they take their time killing themselves. Obese people and smokers don't jusr drop dead, it takes work. A stroke, minor, can't breathe, a walk to the car is too much and they have no problem asking others for help or reminding others ( especially family members ) how this care and catering is owed them.

No one wants to live forever. My beef is those who want to be cared for while they take their time killing themselves. Obese people and smokers don't jusr drop dead, it takes work. A stroke, minor, can't breathe, a walk to the car is too much and they have no problem asking others for help or reminding others ( especially family members ) how this care and catering is owed them.

I do. I'm in love with living life. I just don't appreciate being forced to pay for people's insurance who don't. Especially those who decide to eat and smoke themselves to death.

LOL at Jon,

"I do. I'm in love with living life. I just don't appreciate being forced to pay for people's insurance who don't. Especially those who decide to eat and smoke themselves to death."

Unfortunately it's not the ones that have insurance that you're paying for. It's the ones that don't.

Unfortunately it's not the ones that have insurance that you're paying for. It's the ones that don't.

I wish that were true Unfortunately under Obamacare those who exercise and eat right will pay the same exact premiums as those who burden our health system because they stuff themselves with food and cigarettes.

That's the way it is right now. Insurance is the rule of large numbers.

That's good ol' socialized medicine for you.

That's the way it is right now

Ummm no it is not. Sure if you get your insurance from a group plan at work where they accept everybody no matter their health (just like Obamacare) but not if you have to purchase it on the open market like I do. Your health matters and you pay a larger premium for being an unhealthy risk.

I do.

It's easy to say that you don't want to live forever now, but consider whether your opinion would change if someone pointed a gun at your head and said he was going to fire in five minutes. Most people would probably change their minds in such a situation.

"Forever" isn't some abstract concept far in the future. Living "forever" simply means that one day happens after another, or that you have the same number of days remaining to live now as you did 1,000 years ago. There isn't any specific point at which one starts to live "forever."

I couldn't possibly get done even a millionth of the things I would like to do before I die. I hope I live to see the day when life extension technology becomes possible. Until then, I exercise every day and do everything I can to stay alive as long as possible.

I'm going to bloody well live forever or die trying!

I don't want to live forever, but I do want to live to past 100 and be healthy until the very end like my great-grandparents. There's no reason most of us can't live into our 90s or 100s if we take care of ourselves.

I want to live forever! At least as long as I can...

I have a long "bucket" list of things I'd like to do, see, learn, experience, places I'd like to go, etc. before I die.

Optimism and enthusiasm are natural stress-relievers. Along with diet/exercise/medical care/accident prevention and healthy living, positive thinking about your future can help you enjoy life into your 90's and 100's. (Yes, it helps that my genes offer me that possibility.)

Who wants to die? Especially a brutal death like emphysema, or have type two diabeties? I will never say a rude thing to people who smoke, drink, eat junk food, etc. It is UNHEALTHY and we Americans are consumed by it. You don't need to diet, just eat whole grain and stay away from trans fat like the sin. Excerise once daily and you will live longer and happier.

So if you want to die, then smoke, drink, eat junk food, and don't exercise. Simple.

No one wants to live forever.

I do! Who the hell wants to die??

"Who Wants to Live Forever" is a great song too. Sadly, Freddie Mercury didn't live forever. He only made it to 45.

I'm so disappointed that everything I saw on The Jetsons as a kid in the 60s has so far been one big fat lie! I wanna pop a meal pill! No shopping, no cooking, no dishes....think of all the time that'd free up right there. If Rosie was available to tidy up, frees up more time. So would those moving sidewalks & flying cars. A lot of $ to be made investing in sprockets, too.

This is not what the 2000s were supposed to look like! ;-)

Isn't that the point though? If we're sicker, how is our health care better? If our health care system works, why are we so sick?

jwhite, our health has everything to do with how we treat ourselves and little to do with our visit to the Doctor AFTER we get sick.

Of course, you want to care yourself as much as you can. Visiting a doctor before we get sick is part of caring for ourselves. Exercise and diet is a cure-many, not a cure-all or even a cure-most.

Some people seem healthy and do all the right things and then die because there was some defect that was like a ticking timebomb in their body. A visit to a doctor and an effective treatment can help keep that from happening. Doctors provide valuable and accurate health information to counteract old wives tales and dieting gimmicks that can be a waste of time and money at best and harmful or even deadly at worst.

An experienced doctor can recognize symptoms of a problem long before the patient does. However, it takes time and money to do that and most people would rather not go to a doctor unless they absolutely have to because of the cost.

So people don't care for themselves as well as they would, had they had regular access to healthcare.

Actually excercise and diet is a cure-most.

The unintended result of this utopian vision is that once everybody has free unlimited care, there won't be enough doctors to see everybody in enough time to stop the aforementioned time bomb. That's not a scare tactic, it's math.

Health care is a cost, and just saying 'give it away' doesn't make the cost of the thing disappear. Quality will go down--it has to. People who have the resources don't go to Norway for cancer treatment or heart diseases, they go to Johns Hopkins or the Cleveland Clinic or UCLA, et al.

To the progressives that believe basic economics are inapplicable to health care, I say you are wrong. To the rest who don't even understand basic economics, go study.

Aryaba: Diet and Exercise does not cure cancer.

There's not even much proof that it can even prevent it.

Cancer is the 2nd cause of death in the US.

Other things diet and exercise won't cure or prevent: Scoliosis, Myopia, ADHD, Gingivitis. I'd like to see how you would cure/prevent or even diagnose these without a qualified doctor.

(Well, Myopia might be an easier one for you.)

I said cure-most, not cure-all.

Exercise is most certainly better than none.

In the United States, smoking is estimated to account for 87% of lung cancer cases (90% in men and 85% in women).^[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer

Cancers are primarily an environmental disease with 90-95% of cases due environmental factors such as lifestyle, and 5-10% directly due to heredity.^[1] Common environmental factors leading to cancer include: tobacco (25-30%), diet and obesity (30-35%), infections (15-20%), radiation, lack of physical activity, and environmental pollutants.^[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer

The majority of cancers are preventable. Take care of yourself people! Don't smoke, eat right, and excersise. Very simple concepts that would go a long way to prevent a large amount of medical bills in your lifetime.

STLMike you are correct. But if people want to smoke, light them up. If you want bacon on that greasy burger, go for it.

Other things diet and exercise won't cure or prevent: ....ADHD

Oh how wrong you are about ADHD. There have bene studies that show and I have personal experience that mere food coloring can set off ADHD. Red food dye is most often implicated. You can also often control ADHD by sending kids out to run.

It is a condition that very often can be managed without medication if you watch your diet and stay active.

Exercise and good nutrition can treat ADHD better than drugs can.

Kash - Food coloring does not cause ADHD. If your child experiences adverse symptoms from it, it means he has an allergy to the red dye. Those are two different things.

our health has everything to do with how we treat ourselves and little to do with our visit to the Doctor AFTER we get sick.

It might if preventative care were actually covered by most insurances or affordable for those that don't have any, wouldn't it? I mean, there's something wrong w/ an ins system that cheerfully fills Viagra scrips like candy orders but won't cover one of the most reliable forms of birth controls (IUDs). Who gets stuck holding that baby again?

Also might if everyone had coverage.

Doubt it.

aryaba: You lie.

Cavalier, how do I lie? I doubt expanding professional health-care is an important factor to increasing our longevity.

I have to agree. We spend more money on health care, but an enormous chunk of it is siphoned off by the insurance companies before it ever reaches doctors. Resulting in less health care for the majority of people.

Reports like this are designed to deflect the public from the main issue: our health care system kills people at an earlier age than other developed countries. They try to point the blame back at us for our sinful behavior.

The medical industry are the new High Priests who tell us how to behave, coming up with their own version of Old Testament Kashrut.

Antonio,

Access to healthcare is probably another important factor.

You're probably right. Despite the way the media bias the reporting, there is excellent access to health care in this country. Almost no one goes without.

For all those who are having heart failure over that (covered by Medicare and Medicaid), there's a huge difference between having access to health care and having prepaid health care. We have tens of millions of people without prepaid health care in this country. We have almost no one who does not have access to health care.

As a practical matter, EVERYONE is insured. It's called Medicaid. The only problem with Medicaid is that the deductible is your net worth.

That said, it's practically illegal to die in this country. If you had a curable (or even incurable) disease and decided to forego treatment, if some bleeding heart "advocate" went to a judge, he probably order that you undergo treatment.

You're making me hungry. :D~

My breakfast was gingerbread oatmeal.

Ingredients:

Oatmeal, seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and ground cardamom and sweetened with sorghum. Nummy!

Calories. Calories in minus calories out. While you are mostly right Levi, don't equate olive oil and apple vinegar with 0 anything. Count the calories. It's the reverse of Mr Micawber - (Income greater than expenses = happiness) In this case if input is greater than output then the result is obesity.

Reading everyone's posts made me think of my mom- (who is pushing 90 and shows absolutely no signs stopping mentally or physically) growing up, I wasn't allowed pop, Kool-Aid, lunch meats of any kind and white bread of any kind. I thought she hated me!! Now, I can't thank her enough! Also, I am very grateful that my grandmother took the time to teach me how to purchase, store and cook veggies and meats.

Notanidiotlikeolgunny - hahaha cool name

Um, it's the apple cider vinegar that has 0 everything. The olive oil is the most fattening thing in my salad. And you're right. More calories in than out = weight gain. I know a lady who lost 45 pounds just by counting calories and NEVER exercised.

Fact is, whatever anyone does, shutting off the tv, computer, xbox, whatever and getting outside is only good. Sunlight on the skin makes vitamin D, and being outside leads to better moods, higher seratonin balances in the brain, and overall good health.

"Force health care to cover more...?" What does that mean? You mean force insurance companies to cover more programs? That's ludicrous! At what point do people take responsibility for their own lifestyles?

You're right about the pills though. Enough already. Burn more calories than you take in. It's simple.

force health care to cover more of the programs that help people loose weight!

It's not the governments job to force people to be more healthy. There can't be effective health care reform until we, as a country, reform our health.

I know. Let's outlaw obesity. The obese are obviously a burden to society. We should make them lose weight. Once you're, say, 20 pounds overweight, you're involuntarily committed to a fat-farm.

It's for your own good, right?

skup---right on! I've never heard it stated in a more correct or concise fashion. You have to ignore people who would combat that simple, articulate argument with meaningless hyperbole

insane drive for longevity

People have been living into the 90s and 100s as long as we've had recorded history. Lots of people. You'd think with all our knowledge of medicine and all our technologies we could accomplish at least the same.

Brian--let's talk about "lifestyle" for a moment, shall we?

Let's say that you want to tell people to eat more vegetables, stop eating junk food, go for a walk around the neighborhood, get more sleep, watch less television and get active in the outdoors, and eat lean meat with no additives. Well, now, isn't that sweet.

Let's say that you are a person who lives in a neighborhood where there aren't any stores that sell fresh vegetables--just convenience stores that sell packaged junk food with a long shelf life. Let's say you are a person who can only spend about 25 cents a meal. Let's say you live in a neighborhood where it isn't safe to walk around the neighborhood. Let's say that lean meat with no additives costs over $5 a pound. Let us say that the only entertainment you can manage is television because, let us say, that you work three part-time jobs which keep you completely sedentary for the entire period you are at work. Let us say that there is no "outdoors" that is close to where you are.

Let us say, then, that you live in the real world beyond your cozy little suburb or urban area.

Many people have "lifestyle" forced upon them. One eats Ramen at 15 cents a packet and mac & cheese at 50 cents a box. Look at the calorie count on those sometime, dear--high calories, low nutrition. One works long hours at a sedentary job with a lot of stress because it is the work that is available. One has only a few hours a week for "relaxation," and the only real option is the television because one's neighborhood is unsafe.

To pretend that "lifestyle" is something that a person chooses is completely asinine. Poor people eat bad food because it is cheap. Poor people watch television because it is cheap entertainment. Etc.

Yes, if you have the money to have a healthy lifestyle and also to see a doctor when your illnesses are minor and manageable, you will have a longer lifespan. This is just another way of blaming poor people for their own "bad choices." Hey--if the only food available is ramen and boxed mac&cheese and Doritos, you eat the Ramen or mac&cheese or Doritos.

Or, well, I suppose you could just refuse to make a "bad choice," starve and decrease the surplus population.

Nicely said. I about fell over laughing at the above descriptions of breakfast.

Pop-Tarts. About $10 cheaper than all that good for you goosh.

Obesity is a choice and you don't think you should pay for "fatties" healthcare? They should have to pay rediculous premiums for healthcare just like smokers do?

Ever hear of the word hypocrisy? I'll bet that you drink. Yet drinking and all the costs associated with it are "socially acceptable" to you? Think fat and smoking are "costly" to the American society? Think about it (just for a second) and even you might see that you are wrong.

Admittedly, fat and/or smoking are costs as far as work, doctor, hospital and funerals are concerned. But...just what the hell are the costs associated with drinking? Well let me tell you: abused and beaten wives/children, murdered wives/children; killed pedestrians, bicyclists and other drivers; maimed pedestrians, bicyclists and other drivers. Rapes, robberies and assorted other crimes. In other words, ruined lives.

To continue: police enforcement costs, laywer (read shark) costs, court costs, jury costs (work time lost, oh heavens!), jail costs, prison costs. All these do NOT relate to either fat or smoking.

So now, smart one: just what human failing costs more, fat, smoking or drunk?

So you want to ban all alcohol consumption??? Like that's going to work!! Sure excess alcohol consumption causes problems, but so does excessive food consumption - and we haven't seen all the down side to obesity (while we have more experience with the negative effects of alcohol). I have no negative effects associated with my drinking - actually there are positive effects. I can chill out over a beer, I provide jobs for brewers etc.

I love to spoil the fun, so let me point out that moderate drinking is associated with longer, healthier lifespan.

RetiredSmoker - You raise an excellent point. The number of people who don't know (or don't want to admit - "No, I'm not an addict! I don't do DRUGS!") that alcohol is a drug (and very often a very harmful one at that) is absolutely staggering. I remember reading some BS study from Denmark that boasted about how the death rate dropped when they had to ration grains. You know what takes grains to produce? ALCOHOL. That fact was briefly mentioned, but swiftly glossed over.

Alcohol is more dangerous than every other drug combined. People just don't want to admit it.

Caffeine is a drug too.

Here is an old study done on causes of death.

www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30

Note the first three

Smoking

Obesity

Alcohol

but its also very important to note how they compare to each other, 4x the people die from obesity than Alcohol. Smoking is 5x so their is a little validity to the argument based on number of deaths.

I however am not sure I agree with the comment that its a choice the same as smoking. But it is nearly as big a problem, and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually passes smoking as the leading cause of death soon due to anti smoking laws and campaigns.

Alcohol- can be abstained from completely with no ill affects (I myself do not drink at all, with a 1 or 2 time per year 1-2 oz glass of wine).

Smoking- anyone is healthier completely abstaining.

Food- how long have you known someone who gave up food completely? Giving up food completely is a guarantee to a short future.

THAT's the difference!

Because our health care system is fundamentally flawed.

It is not the health care system that is flawed, It is the users(abusers) There are plenty of us out here who take care of ourselves, We eat healthy foods, we get plenty of exercise and we see a Dr regularly and many of us pay for our routine health checkups as we feel that is our responsibility as part of keeping ourselves healthy.

America has become a land of laziness(not everyone but a substantial amount) Everyone is always looking for that machine to do the work for them, They are sitting in front of a screen playing a game instead of being outside actually playing the game.

Its not our health care system, It our people

@ chris brooks..If you do not believe the report, please refute it with facts, or critique the methodology of the study. Otherwise, simple opinion doesn't carry much weight. As for why we are ranked so low and spend so much that's simple--we are a nation of fat, lazy people. How can we expect to have the same results as other countries if we eat twice as much and exercise half the time at best? Then we show up at the doctor all jacked up and expect miracles. Id actually be shocked if we had the same outcomes for the same money

It is not the health care system that is flawed, It is the users(abusers)

Our healthcare system is MOST CERTAINLY flawed since it prefers treatment to prevention and has costs that are so prohibitive many cannot afford basic healthcare. Furthermore the limits on residencies prohibit an increase in the number of doctors we have, especially in general practice, creating a situation in which there wouldn't be enough doctors to go around if everyone in the nation got a yearly physical, let along got sick.

In what way specifically does it prefer treatment to prevention? I know that's a flashy catchphrase that i often hear repeated, but never proven. Please give me some facts/data/evidence/statistics to back up this specific claim. The truth is no doctor wants to see their patient end up in the hospital with a heart attack or stroke. Every office visit that's not for a specific complaint deals with prevention. The most commonly prescribed drug in the US is lipitor--a cholesterol lowering drug designed to PREVENT heart attacks.

As for the costs, please see the title of this article you are commenting on. Thre reason our costs are so high is that the us population is so unhealthy. Do you really think you could treat a population that has 3-4 TIMES the obeseity as cheaply or effectively as a thinner one?

Finally, limits on family practice residencies? Really? We can't fill the slots we have currently. Just look at any school/hospital's family practice residency list--it is mostly filled by sub par foreign med graduates because FP can no longer attract many bright american students. Why that is the case is an entirely seperate discussion

But medical colleges and hospitals warn that these efforts will hit a big bottleneck: There is a shortage of medical resident positions. The residency is the minimum three-year period when medical-school graduates train in hospitals and clinics.

There are about 110,000 resident positions in the U.S., according to the AAMC. Teaching hospitals rely heavily on Medicare funding to pay for these slots. In 1997, Congress imposed a cap on funding for medical residencies, which hospitals say has increasingly hurt their ability to expand the number of positions.

From here: http://www.medrants.com/archives/5425

I have not verified that source, but I heard a story about the residency bottleneck on NPR a while ago and just did a quick google search for this. I must be off to bed now, but I'll check back in the morning.

I agree as long as it remains our "choice" to reform, and not dictated by laws, mandates etc. There are many groups out there with good/healthy ideas for maintaining good health, but these suggestions should be welcomed but not made mandatory for all.

OMG you read my mind, we really needed a study and an article to tell us the fat a$$ people have more health problems and that people who smoke shorten their lives and when a fat a$$ smokes it's like a death sentense?

Proam.......That's my biggest fear!!! Dementia/Alzheimer's is the worst..If your body doesn't fail...your brain will. I choose the first one. I'm going to go have a smoke!