We must be healthier because we’re living longer. Right?
Wrong. The big gains in life expectancy in the twentieth century had everything to do with reductions in infant mortality, rather than living longer at the other end. The aging population we hear so much about is because there will be more old people.
And even before COVID started messing with our mortality rates, both the USA and UK had begun down-grading average life expectancy. Not only are we not living longer, according to the insurance industry twenty percent of us will die before our 65th birthday, while thirty percent will suffer a non-fatal major medical illness, and 33 percent of us (that’s one in every three people) will be off work for six months more due to accident or illness.
In Life Expectancy, Just Cause and Effect – Selenium Deficiency in New Zealand takes a deep dive into New Zealand’s aging population to discover we are not as healthy as we like to think we are.