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Life Expectancy Set To Hit 90 In South Korea, Study Predicts (nature.com)

According to a study published in the journal The Lancet, researchers have predicted that South Korea will likely become the first country where the average life expectancy will exceed 90 years. The researchers led by public-health researcher Majid Ezzati at Imperial College London used data from the World Health Organization and a suite of 21 statistical models they developed to figure out how life expectancy will change in 35 developed countries by 2030. Nature reports: Life expectancy is expected to increase in all 35 countries, in keeping with steady progress in recent decades, the team found. But it is South Korean women who will be living longest by 2030: there is a nearly 60% chance that their life expectancy at birth will exceed 90 years by that time, the team calculates. Girls born in the country that year can expect to live, on average, to nearly 91, and boys to 84, the highest in the world for both sexes. The nation's rapid improvement in life expectancy -- the country was ranked twenty-ninth for women in 1985 -- is probably down to overall improvements in economic status and child nutrition, the study notes, among other factors. South Koreans also have relatively equal access to health care, lower blood pressure than people in Western countries and low rates of smoking among women. As for the United States, the life expectancy is "predicted to be among the lowest of these countries by 2030; 80 for men (similar to the Czech Republic) and 83 for women (similar to Mexico)."

54 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Best Korea Wins! by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Funny

    How much do you want to bet that North Korea releases a report of their own stating that life expectancy in their country now exceeds 95 years, only exceeded by their glorious leader, who is expected to live for two centuries?

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    1. Re:Best Korea Wins! by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately, due to NK's presence, SK life expectancy (on average) may well be below 90 in a not so far future.

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    2. Re:Best Korea Wins! by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The "dear leader" isn't so dear and will be lucky to survive the next five years.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. I know a 90 and in excellent health for a 90 yo by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 2

    and it still sucks

    1. Re:I know a 90 and in excellent health for a 90 yo by javilon · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. Most people don't like the idea of living that many years in poor health, limited and frail. But the current situation is we patch the problems that come with age and keep people alive.

      On the other hand, if you look at the SENS strategy (http://www.sens.org), what they are trying to achieve is to revert the damage that age inflicts on people, so you live in good health and active and strong. What is important here is to increase the "healthspan". If lifespan is increased it is good too.

      Please support SENS.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
  3. Re:The US ranks with Mexico? by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well somebody has to because work is below most americans and stuff has to get done.

  4. Calculating age by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Let's not forget that in South Korea, you are considered to be 1 year old on the day you are born and your age increases by 1 on January 1st regardless of your date of birth. The average 5-year-old South Korean is 1.5 years younger than the average 5-year-old American.

    While this has probably been accounted for, I wouldn't be so bold as to put such an oversight past today's "scientists".

  5. Not a surprise by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    since SK's Samsung stopped selling the Note 7

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  6. Re:Pension Fraud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How else are hikikomori expected to live after their parents die? It's not like they can find work, when they can't leave the house, and crippling social anxiety prevents them from becoming highly paid youtube celebrities.

  7. No big deal by Laxator2 · · Score: 1

    On Aurora and Solaria life expectancy has hit 350 and nobody seems to worry about it.

  8. Re:Not if your named Kim-Jong-Nam by maroberts · · Score: 4, Funny

    Life expectancy for North Koreans in Malaysian airports is much shorter.

    --

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    Karma: Chameleon

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:I think they predicted Hillary would win electi by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    "And account for the higher drug prices coming to the rest of the world..."

    No, drug prices in the US will fall to the open-market prices in the rest of the world.

  11. If it wasn't for the draft... by denzacar · · Score: 1

    ...Serbia, along with the rest of the Balkans, would be much higher on that graph. Way above the USA. Not just below it.
    Promaya kills.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  12. Re: The US ranks with Mexico? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Illegals cannot, by definition, work legally. Thus they can be paid under minimum wage, be abused, be unable to communicate with the OSHA inspector, etc. It's an awful situation and we need to help these people get back home.

  13. Re:Expectancy of expectancy? by Imrik · · Score: 2

    This is a prediction of life expectancy for people that haven't been born yet.

  14. So, America might have a lower life expectancy.. by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, America might have a lower life expectancy but we make it up by weighing three times as much. If you use "pound-years" as a metric, America on average is probably more than triple Koreans.

  15. Fan death by HalAtWork · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's what the rest of the world gets for not taking fan death seriously!

    1. Re:Fan death by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      I wanted to mod you either +1 funny or +1 informative, but instead decided to post instead.

      My first thought was "who's killing sports fans in Korea?" as I remembered a story about a stadium with robot audiences there.

      Then I googled the phrase and found immediate hits (p'raps previous /.'s like me looking it up primed google's cache).

      So I thought that it maybe was related to the warnings about their charcoal stoves and heating. When I was in SK in a previous millennium we were seriously briefed about keeping good ventilation because charcoal fumes were the major cause of accidental death.

      Anyways, according to the font of all knowledge apparently the superstition goes almost as far back as the introduction of electric fans in Korea, in the early 1900's.

      Yoboseo

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    2. Re:Fan death by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

      Haha interesting, I would have never thought of sports fans killing each other... Sad to find out that is real and causes actual death. That takes the concept of sore winners and sore losers much too far.

  16. Re:The US ranks with Mexico? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

    Yes, I agree with you. There are some jobs Americans find so loathsome and beneath their dignity they would not do it no matter how much you pay them. Most agricultural, seasonal and fast food work does not fall into that category. But I concede there are a very small number of such jobs that Americans find it beneath them. Like marrying pervert billionaires, you have import their wives from some eastern European countries.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  17. Re: The US ranks with Mexico? by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

    Nah, it's because the rich don't want to pay Americans what they're worth. They'd rather import illegals to work for $5/hour cash and ignore the labor laws, safety laws, overtime laws, etc. It's pure selfishness as well as disgust at the vile deplorable American people. It ain't ordinary folks who benefit from illegals.

    You are worth what your job and output are worth, economically speaking. No more, no less.

  18. Re:If it wasn't for the draft (Balkans War) by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    maybe it was just the work of London freemasonry, wanting to cause carnage to please their Osiris-Lucifer idol with blood sacrifice?

    Thank God I read to the end of your post and its chillingly rational explanation of the Balkans Conflict. Until now I thought it had something to do with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the explosion of long-standing ethnic and religious conflicts hitherto suppressed under the rule of Tito.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  19. Re: The US ranks with Mexico? by currently_awake · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If a job has so little value that only illegal workers from Mexico can do it, then that job has already been exported to Mexico. Except that American taxpayers are covering the bills (police, school for kids etc). America would be better off just making it official and let Mexico have those jobs directly (no more subsidies etc).

  20. Cue "in Korea" jokes by elgatozorbas · · Score: 1

    But will they be using email?

    1. Re:Cue "in Korea" jokes by Heathren-bert · · Score: 1

      In Korea only old people live to be 90.

  21. Re:If it wasn't for the draft (Balkans War) by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    Hm, there's doesn't seem to be a "...the fuck?" moderation, so I guess I'll save that point for another discussion.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  22. Re:The US ranks with Mexico? by hey! · · Score: 2

    Actually the number of Mexicans in the US has been dropping for years. That's because for years US politicians have been intent on turning us into a low-wage, non-industrialized nation run by and for an economic elite.

    What's there to choose? They might as well go home.

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  23. Re:So, America might have a lower life expectancy. by hey! · · Score: 1

    Why single out one cause, when there's obviously many.

    Take food. I live near a supermarket that is probably three times the size of the one my parents went to, but the produce section is smaller, the meat and dairy sections about the same size. The surplus acreage is taken up with cheap, calorie dense, no-preparation convenience food.

    Or the fact that Amercians spend more time in cars than they used to, on average over 290 hours a year.

    Here's another interesting fact: research shows that the portion size you choose is positively correlated to the size of the package you serve yourself from; this doesn't happen consciously, it's just that a cup of cereal from a 9 ounce box appears like a lot more than a cup of cereal from a 21 oz box.

    The huge sizes are driven in part by an attempt to cut down on trips to the grocery store. American home kitchens are the largest in the world, and most of that is needed for storage because we don't do very much food preparation.

    So if there's a single root cause it's the pursuit (sometimes failed) of efficiency; we have the wealth to try to reduce labor and time spent doing things, but our bodies are designed to spend time doing things.

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  24. Re:The inevitable unPC response by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    So, is the bark worse than the bite?

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    Just another day in Paradise
  25. With "global warming" and over population by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    You'd think scientist would be pushing for LOWERING the lifespan of humans...well, the "right" humans that is. The so called "smart" people would be exempt from it of course.

    1. Re:With "global warming" and over population by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      Longevity is not correlated with overpopulation. Most of the countries with over population problems are among those with the lowest life expectancy and vice versa.

    2. Re:With "global warming" and over population by XXongo · · Score: 1

      You'd think scientist would be pushing for LOWERING the lifespan of humans...

      I'm not sure why you would think this. In general, scientists are not assholes, despite what the blogosphere would have you believe.

      I can't assert that about Slashdot commenters, on the other hand.

    3. Re:With "global warming" and over population by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      plenty of scientists and engineers are "assholes" and are engaged in work that shortens human life. think harder about all the products that shorten human life, ruin environment, enable war for power and profit rather than defense, etc.

  26. Re:It is a dog's life. by dcw3 · · Score: 2

    While dog (Kaygogi) is eaten, it's rather uncommon. I lived there for six years, and only came across it once when my landlord invited me to their elderly grandmother's birthday.

    I haven't read the article, but my knee-jerk reaction to the headline is disbelief. Korea is highly polluted, with a very large smoking population, and tuberculosis was much more common there than in the US. Many homes are heated using "Ondal", a form of charcoal, smoking out into the open air. Of the roughly 50 countries I've been to, Korea had the worst drivers...Wikipedia shows 18.2 fatalities/billion km...the U.S. has 7.3 in comparison. The country also has a habit of hiding issues...they refused to admit there were any cases of AIDS for quite a while.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  27. Re:If it wasn't for the draft (Balkans War) by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    I don't know why you "blame" brits and the Vatican.

    The now separated states declared independence from "Yugoslavia". And the "Great Serbien Reich" had nothing better to do than to attack the states and draw them _all_ or in other words, each of them, into a full scale war with atrocities over atrocities.

    The only ones who where lucky were the Slovenians who basically did first what the Serbs did in the other countries: they put all Serbian troops in mainly Slovenian barracks into prison, surrounded the mainly Serbien barracks and gave an ultimatum: "you leave, your weapons stay, or we kill you". Originally most barracks had Serbian and Slovenian troops mixed as they both belonged to the same "nation"/"army". But during the forming of the individual (first federal and later independent) states the Serbs who were in charge of the army, tried to set up barracks with mainly Serbian forces.

    Only a few mostly Serbian barracks started fights, the war was over in 10 days, see wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The other states where not that smart, because there the Serbs did the same tactics as the Slovenians above, but did not give an ultimatum, they just started the killing everywhere.

    And then the slaughtering of ethnic groups amoung themselves started, especially in Bosnia.

    --
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  28. Re:It's the suburbs... by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    The suburbs I grew up in didn't have Netflix...but then I grew up before the internet. Our nearest fast food place was a couple miles away, and we had a baseball field at the end of our street where my friends and I used to play ball. We spent more of our waking hours outside than in. I'd typically put 1000 miles on my bicycle during the summer.

    So, while you may blame the 'burbs, I'd argue that it's a generational issue.

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  29. Re:The US ranks with Mexico? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    You realize it's what people used to call an "Iron Curtain", right?

    Look at Trump's policies carefully, which part of them doesn't look like old-style Communist Russia?

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    No sig today...
  30. Re: The US ranks with Mexico? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    So that the Playstation Generation can do all that work? Construction, cleaning, picking cotton, etc.

    It'll make good reality TV, that's for sure. I can't wait to see their tears.

    --
    No sig today...
  31. US Life Expectancy is 91.9 years by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you're a woman in the top 1% by income. If you're a man in the top 1% it's 88.8 years.

    If you're middle class you live about 78.3 years if you're a man, which is big step up from 1980, probably because of smoking. If you're a woman you live 79.7 years, a decline of a few months since 1980.

    Now if you're a poor your life expectancy has declined since 1980, to 76.1 for men and 78.3 for women.

    So here's the picture: if you're rich, medical advances since 1980 have increased your expected lifespan by about seven years. But those advances haven't had any effect on middle class lifespans. If you're poor you apparently are having difficulty paying for medical care at all, which is not surprising because health care costs have consistently outpaced inflation since the mid-70s. If you're a working poor American health care inflation meant you basically screwed by the 2000s: you were too rich for Medicaid, to poor to avoid medical care.

    One more thing: US has a GINI coefficient (measure of income disparity) of 45. That's the highest in the industrialized world, and much higher than it's low point of 34 in 1969. Basically all of the income growth sicne 1990 have gone to the top quintile, in fact the lion's share to the top 5%. People at the 80th percentile by income and below have seen basically zero income growth when adjusted for inflation. And since health care inflation rises faster than inflation, it means 80% of the the US has seen a cut in its disposable income.

    --
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    1. Re:US Life Expectancy is 91.9 years by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      So.......how much of that is due to smoking and diet, and how much due to healthcare?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:US Life Expectancy is 91.9 years by hey! · · Score: 1

      About 1/3, according to statisticians.

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    3. Re:US Life Expectancy is 91.9 years by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Wow, nice, you actually know. I didn't expect that.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  32. BS, and more BS by s.petry · · Score: 2

    Not that long ago most of the "jobs American's won't do" were done exactly by Americans. Simple labor was done by high school kids (with record low labor participation rates today), Students on break from College (also record low labor participation), or entry level jobs for people not sure what to do with their careers (now mostly unemployed).

    Employers given the ability to pay illegal workers less money and work them more hours has led to a lack of entry level and low level jobs. Why would a farmer hire young adults, especially considering the restrictions the State puts on workers below 18 and pay minimum wage? Why pay them more than minimum wage even if they are extremely productive? They won't, because they can get more labor at less money and not have to worry about anyone from State looking at how they treat labor.

    To your last point: "ME" is the most important thing in many relationships, not "WE". That message and value has been preached by both 2nd and 3rd wave feminists since the 70s. Feminists 3rd wave has been so vocal that we now have groups of MGTOWS, massive low rates of marriage, low birthrate (which to many is the point of those movements), and a society growing more and more immoral/degenerate. Further, you can't be so foolish as to not understand that gold diggers exist. Unfortunately this means that if you want old fashioned family values, it may be easier to import them. Your slight is a troll.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  33. The US has a real problem by XXongo · · Score: 2

    As for the United States, the life expectancy is "predicted to be among the lowest of these countries by 2030; 80 for men (similar to the Czech Republic) and 83 for women (similar to Mexico)."

    I'm quite horrified that all the commentary on the article is almost entirely sarcasm and jokes. In fact, this is relatively horrifying. Not only is the life expectancy in the U.S. currently less than that in any of the developed countries in Europe, it's decreasing.

    This is bad. It's easy enough to make fun of Europe's universal health care, but apparently they're doing something right.

    "The culprits for our declining years, the report says, were increases in mortality from heart disease, chronic lower respiratory diseases, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, kidney disease and suicide. Not surprisingly, that group plus cancer and the flu make up the top 10 causes of death in the U.S....
    He (the report author) did highlight a 3% increase in "unintentional injuries." The heading includes, among other things, traffic accidents and drug overdoses — both of which often involve relatively young victims whose deaths can have a strong impact on the numbers."
    source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

    See also:
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/08/...
    http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/12/08/504667607/life-expectancy-in-u-s-drops-for-first-time-in-decades-report-finds

    1. Re:The US has a real problem by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are in many cases the result of eating too much food and junk food. Chronic lower respiratory diseases are mostly from smoking. These are the root causes, not the lack of a theft-funded government heath program.

      --
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  34. In other news... by jnaujok · · Score: 1

    ...America continues to be the only country in the world that reports stillborn children (age 0) as part of their statistics to the WHO.

    --
    Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
    1. Re:In other news... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      http://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/stillbirth.aspx Stillbirths are 1 in 160. That's enough to change life expectancy by half a year.

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  35. Re:So, America might have a lower life expectancy. by myth24601 · · Score: 1

    The cardinal rule of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison.

    --
    No matter where you go, there you are.
  36. Re:The US ranks with Mexico? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    No, it's more like Hadrian's Wall or the Great Wall of China. The purpose it to keep out the barbarians.

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  37. Re:Expectancy of expectancy? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    This is like a "confidence level", commonly used in statistics.

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  38. Re:I think they predicted Hillary would win electi by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    It's not quite that simple. Outside the US, governments pressure medicine suppliers to lower prices by threatening not to honor patents, so either the suppliers lower prices or competitors enter the field. In the US, the patents are honored, and the suppliers lobby or bribe legislators and bribe the FDA to keep generics unapproved.

    A knowledgeable consumer who can afford to go to a place with low medicine prices can profit thereby. Getting low medicine prices generally in the US will require large and sustained political pressure.

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  39. Re:The US ranks with Mexico? by syntotic · · Score: 1

    It has been agreed the China Wall was meant to hinder invaders on their way out, not protected to keep them out. It does ring... Chinese thinking.

  40. We're doing it wrong. by XXongo · · Score: 1
    Whatever it is the U.S. is doing, we seem to be doing it wrong.

    It's charmingly naive of you to think that our bad health has nothing to do with our health care system, probably the worst in the developed world, and definitely the most expensive in the developed world. (And I assume you've never been outside the U.S., since you seem to think nobody in the rest of the world smokes.)

    But, whether in health care or in something else, we're at the bottom of the list in the developed world. Whatever it is we're doing-- we should do something else.