"The USA has the highest child and maternal mortality, homicide rate, and body-mass index of any high-income country, and was the first of high-income countries to experience a halt or possibly reversal of increase in height in adulthood, which is associated with higher longevity," wrote the study authors.
The maternal deaths statistic is not that straightforward. The Economist just had an article about this [1]. It appears that differences in measurements can explain that higher risk.
CDC methodology vs UK methodology doesn't explain why California has a rate of 7.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 compared with 22.0 for the US as a whole. Or why the rate in California is falling (like other developed countries) while the rate for the entire US is rising year on year [1].
The author just threw out data (with no explanation of their methodology) until they got the American rate similar to the UK rate and then stopped so they could assert that there's absolutely nothing wrong with the US health industry. The author would have been fully aware of the regional differences in the US because the Economist article is a response to the various articles this summer about maternal deaths in the US which have generally focused heavily on the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative and the improvements California has made compared to other states[2][3].
Not that I'd take the 21 year old interns writing without bylines in The Economist very seriously on health matters (or anything else for that matter).
> Seems to me that our technology may actually just be hitting a wall in regards to life expectancy.
"Americans Are Dying Younger". That will mean that the wall is moving making technology less useful to keep life expectancy. And this is not true.
If we can do more to keep people, not just alive, but healthy. We should do it. Even if there are people that don't see it that way: Fox News host laughs at Democrats saying thousands will die under Trump healthcare bill: 'We're all gonna die'
Seems to me that our technology may actually just be hitting a wall in regards to life expectancy.
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This is probably happening there has to be a limit, also after 80 things get bad really fast, who didn't have a relative doing great then suddenly getting ill and dying in less than a year at those ages
I meant that there is only so much that technology can do. That, combined with bad eating habits in general, have a compounding effect on the mortality rate, especially at ages 70+ when heart attack risks are at their highest.
Seems to me that our technology may actually just be hitting a wall in regards to life expectancy.
That, and the proliferation of sugar in our every-day diets has long-term consequences (who knew? /s)