A new study finds that, on average, Americans spend more time sick compared to people in other countries.
The findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open on December 11, found that Americans spend an average of 12.4 years living with diseases. Mental illness, substance use disorder, and musculoskeletal conditions, like osteoporosis, are the most common ailments afflicting Americans.
To arrive at their conclusions, the authors looked at the healthspan-lifespan gap. This is a measure of the ratio of the number of years a person has lived with disease or disability, not just one’s total lifespan. It is a measure that focuses on the quality of life while alive, not simply the number of years someone lives.
The researchers leveraged data compiled from all 183 members of the World Health Organization. Over the past two decades, the healthspan-lifespan gap has risen worldwide.
Globally, the gap is 9.6 years, but in the United States, it is substantially higher at 12.4 years, the largest of any country. The larger number is thought to be linked to a rise in noncommunicable diseases, those diseases that are not contagious and do not represent the leading cause of death and disability.
Women were found to have a 2.4-year wider healthspan-lifespan gap than men, a phenomenon the authors say is related to “a disproportionately larger burden of noncommunicable diseases in women.”
Ultimately, the study points to the fact that people live longer but are plagued by additional years of sickness. Modernity, it seems, has been more effective at extending lifespan than lowering the sicknesses people endure while alive.
“These results underscore that around the world, while people live longer, they live a greater number of years burdened by disease. To identify drivers of the healthspan-lifespan gap, associated demographic, health, and economic characteristics need to be investigated by geography,” the study concluded.
Last month, The Dallas Express reported that aging might not be a straight line but instead involve periods of acceleration. Specifically, a study published in the journal Nature Aging found that people tend to undergo two major aging milestones, one in their 40s and another in their 60s.