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European Health Levels Suddenly Collapsed After 2003 and Nobody Is Sure Why
KentuckyFC writes "Europeans are living longer. But since 2003, they've suddenly enjoyed fewer years of healthy life. For example, in Italy between 1995 and 2003, life expectancy increased from 75 to 80.1 for men and from 81.8 to 85.3 for women. At the same time, the number of years of healthy life increased from 66.7 to 70.9 for men and from 70 to 74.4 for women. But since 2003, while life expectancy has increased further, the number of years of healthy living has plummeted to about 62 for both sexes. More worrying still is that demographers say the same trend has been repeated right across Europe. Only the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands appear to have escaped. That raises an obvious question: what happened in 2003? One idea is that the weather is to blame. In 2003, Europe experienced an extreme heat wave that led to some 80,000 extra deaths across the region. And the higher temperatures could also have triggered ill health, particularly in older people suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes. That has important implications for governments who have to pay for health costs in Europe. And it raises the possibility that climate change is already having a bigger impact on human health than anyone imagined."
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My guess would be that they are just following America's lead and are becoming fatter.
The article even says:
And yet this increasing lifespan masks a dark secret. Many developed countries are suffering an epidemic of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease thanks to poor diets and sedentary lifestyles. The numbers are such that they must inevitably influence the health of nations as a whole but by how much?
Then the authors go on to blame it on the weather.
Rather than conclude that the heat wave is the culprit, first find some comparative events. Its not like there is a historical shortage of heat waves to use to validate the theory, yet there seems to have been no attempt to do so mentioned.
How about the austerity measures, put into place across Europe. Perhaps the stress countries are coming under is spreading to peoples health to the point were it is a negative response. Happy people live longer and in many EU countries, people are not happy.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
This has to all be Barak Obama's fault, personally. There is no other possible explanation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The article lists Sweden among the countries where the years of health are going down, but when you look at the graph for individual countries, Sweden has a strong positive trend, and does not go down significantly in any year. Is that an error, or have I missed something?
On a side note, the article is confusing "Europe" with "The European Union". They aren't the same thing, especially when making statements like "Only the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands appear to have escaped". They didn't consider Iceland, Norway, Switzerland or any of the eastern european countries, for example. (Also, France is among those considered, and also doesn't seem to be declining).
Finally, the study is based on interview subjects' own perception of their health, and so might be affected by news reporing on health or other psychologial effects. But it is definitely an interesting result they've found.
There's no lameness filter for bold!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not only older people. When I was young we used to play with Lego in the winter and be outside when it was warm. Many of today's youth just play computer games all day long, on their playstations or what have you and outside on their phones. They only move their thumbs.
-- Cheers!
Could this be because it's easier to get diagnosed with diabetes, COPD, or other non-healthy conditions than it was in 2002? I've heard enough anecdotal evidence to make me ask the question, but it would be nice to see a study. How many people who were considered healthy in 2002 could visit a doctor in 2013 and be declared unhealthy, and how does that fraction vary by country? Unless an article can control for that variable, the other numbers don't really mean much.
More and more of electronic pollution? Mire wifi usage, more cellphones + more upper gigahertz traffic (G2, G3, G4)?
Imbalanced chakras? Cold and squared audio output from transistor amps? The decline of the department store?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Could it be related to The Great Depression? Somebody who lived until they were 85, and died between 2003 and 2013 would have been born between 1918 and 1928. Basically, they would have been quite young during the great depression. I wonder if something like this could have big effects so much later in life. It's mostly likely that, or possibly that a lot of them ended up being veterans of the war, as they would have been around 15-25 years old when the second world war was going on. I'm sure there's some very reasonable explanation why this group of people aren't living so many healthy years.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Lego in the winter? Playing outside in the winter.
When people see how much I eat, they are amazed that I am as fat as I am. I then tell them I still eat way too much for what I do. This is my (and many other peoples) life
Get up and wash
Walk 15 meters to my car and drive to work
Get out of my car and walk 15 meters to the elevator.
Get to the floor and walk 10 meters to my desk.
Sit at my desk till lunch, where I walk another 20 meters.
Back to my desk, then to the elevator, to my car and plant myself in front of my tv/PC.
That means I do not even walk 200 meters per day. How can I NOT be fat?
Luckily I will have to change the office where I work. That means I will have to take public transport. That means around 2KM walking per day. Still not a lot, but already a 10 fold increase of what I do now and if I do not take the two stops at the metro (in summer when the weather is nice) I will double that figure.
For many kids the same thing happens when they are being brought to school by mom/dad instead of going by public transport.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.