• Why is Life Expectancy Growth Slowing Down?

Laboratory Products

Why is Life Expectancy Growth Slowing Down?

Aug 21 2017

Compare today’s life expectancy averages with those recorded a century ago and there’s a significant increase. But according to University College London expert Sir Michael Marmot, rising rates of life expectancy are about to come to a grinding halt. After more than 100 years of continuous progress, the leading health expert has stressed that he’s "deeply concerned" by the situation and has labelled it as "highly unusual" from a historical perspective.

Life expectancy falls by 50%

Drawing on Office for National Statistics projections for babies born since 2000, Marmot discovered that England’s rate of increase in life expectancy had fallen by 50% since 2010. Specifically, he found that between 2000 and 2015 life expectancy at birth increased by one year every 3.5 years for men and one year every five years for women. However post-2010 he found that life expectancy rates increased just one year every six years for men and one year every 10 years for women.

According to Marmot, when compared to the rising life expectancy rates seen over the past 100 years this confirms that the growth is "pretty close to having ground to a halt."

"I am deeply concerned with the levelling off, I expected it to keep getting better," he says.

Could austerity be dragging the UK down?

While it’s hard to draw well-founded conclusions about the cause, Marmot has stressed that austerity could be playing a role. From education and employment to working conditions and poverty, he stresses that social factors can have a marked effect on life expectancy.

Alzheimer's Society chief executive Jeremy Hughes was quick to support Marmot, commenting that austerity is a rising concern.

"Too often we hear the consequences of inadequate, underfunded care,” he comments. “Our investigation last year revealed people with dementia left in soiled sheets, becoming ill after eating out of date food, and ending up in costly hospital or care home admissions unnecessarily.”

He didn’t hold back on pointing the finger, maintaining that "the government has to act before the care system collapses entirely."

Pushing the limits

Of course, there is the argument that the human race has simply reached the outer limits of life expectancy. Thanks to modern medicine and contemporary luxuries it’s easier than ever to live past the age of 90. Just last year US scientists concluded that the absolute limit for the human body was around 115, which could explain why life expectancy rates are starting to slow down.

That said, following the catastrophic Grenfell Tower blaze England’s social gap was pushed into the spotlight. Residents in the London neighbourhoods of Kensington and Chelsea live 16 years longer than their poverty laden class counterparts, and there’s no escaping the fact that wealth is a major contributor.

When it comes to increasing life expectancy technology plays a pivotal role. For a closer look at the latest developments hitting sterilisation laboratories, ‘Autoclave Wrap – No Jacket Required’ spotlights new innovations from Priorclave, Britain’s progressive design and manufacturing centre for steam sterilisers.


Digital Edition

Lab Asia 31.2 April 2024

April 2024

In This Edition Chromatography Articles - Approaches to troubleshooting an SPE method for the analysis of oligonucleotides (pt i) - High-precision liquid flow processes demand full fluidic c...

View all digital editions

Events

Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2024

Apr 08 2024 Edinburgh 2024

analytica 2024

Apr 09 2024 Munich, Germany

ChemBio Finland 2024

Apr 10 2024 Helsinki, Finland

Analytica Anacon India & IndiaLabExpo

Apr 15 2024 Mumbai, India

Analitika Expo 2024

Apr 16 2024 Moscow, Russia

View all events