U.S. life expectancy hits all-time high
by brandonb on 2/1/2026, 1:51:09 AM
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-life-expectancy-hits-all-time-high/
Comments
by: pinkmuffinere
Is this not just because Covid killed off many of the weakest individuals? I suspect we just traded deaths in 2021 for deaths in 2025, making this latest data look better, without fundamental improvement. Not to say with confidence that _no_ improvement has been made, but that I think the stats for _this one year_ are probably not very meaningful. Maybe I misunderstood something though?
2/1/2026, 2:55:08 AM
by: N_Lens
Yet still lower than other developed nations, especially considering the exorbitant expenditure (per capita) on healthcare.
2/1/2026, 2:46:26 AM
by: pinkmuffinere
> “There are still critical problems in the U.S. public health profile. It should not be big news when the life expectancy rises, which happens every year in every other developed country,” Cohen says<p>Wow, that’s a really biting criticism of US public health — and rightly so
2/1/2026, 4:01:11 AM
by: mullingitover
It says a lot that the US isn’t beating poverty-stricken Cuba on this metric, considering the eye-watering prices that are extorted from patients.
2/1/2026, 2:54:56 AM
by: rayiner
Comparing these statistics across countries is not useful without demographic adjustment. For example, Hispanics in the U.S. have a higher life expectancy than white people in the UK: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13te521/life_expectancy_of_raceethnicity_in_the_uk/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13te521/life_expect...</a>.
2/1/2026, 3:36:17 AM
by: userbinator
I've always found the numbers in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...</a> rather interesting, because of how different the cultures and living conditions are even among the top countries. Hong Kong and Japan are always around the top, but so are Switzerland and Australia.
2/1/2026, 2:50:21 AM
by: drsalt
There are many different populations in the USA. How useful is the overall life expectancy average? What decision can I make with this information?
2/1/2026, 2:39:48 AM
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2/1/2026, 4:17:45 AM
by: Fire-Dragon-DoL
That 5 years difference between men and women keeps being biologically weird
2/1/2026, 3:12:45 AM
by: jackschultz
I wonder how much this might change in the coming years purely from GLP-1s. Articles like this[0] (which yes, Betteridge's law applies) talk about how it’s pretty likely they’ll be able to be used by everyone. But even now, taking people with cardiovascular high probabilities and dropping that risk way down purely by giving them the feeling that they’re more full more frequently is crazy to think about. Not sure opinions here but I’m at the point of telling my parents they should both be on these right now in their upper 60s.<p>Some people shrug it off or claim that they’re higher status because they lost weight via diet and exercise, but I map that to people who think they’re better programmers because they don’t use llms for coding, when the real result is what matters. Similar to people thinking AI slop, there are news articles about what happens if you stop GLP-1s and gain the weight back. But the stories of people who either continue to microdose, or also learn the feelings of their body and how it differs have long term success. Similar to those who know how to work with llms get good results, but the news is about how smarter people don’t use it.<p>All very interesting subjects. What a world we’re in.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-does-it-seem-like-glp-1-drugs" rel="nofollow">https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-does-it-seem-like-glp-1-...</a>
2/1/2026, 3:03:21 AM
by: ls612
Everyone wants to shit on this news but I think it’s amazing. You can’t go back and change the past but if you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before there’s reason to celebrate even if it would have been nicer if it happened in 2016.
2/1/2026, 3:11:19 AM
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2/1/2026, 2:35:29 AM
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2/1/2026, 2:59:53 AM
by: russellbeattie
I don't think this is necessarily a good thing. The world would be a demonstrably better place if the average life expectancy had remained around 70, like it was the year I was born.<p>Every new generation deals with growing populations to one degree or a other. World population has doubled in my lifetime for example. But human society just isn't made to have so many long lived people hoarding wealth and power decades beyond what they historically have.<p>GenX finally outnumbers the Boomers, but that should have happened a decade ago. The damage they've inflicted on the younger generations is really incalculable.<p>I think as time goes by, we may have to decide that people over a certain age are to be legally treated the same as those under 18.
2/1/2026, 3:11:28 AM
by: ingakay
[dead]
2/1/2026, 4:11:48 AM