December 5, 2023 — Let’s call this a half step. During the pandemic, Americans lost almost two and a half years in life expectancy. Men did worse than women. Now the news from CDC is that in 2022, we got back just a little more than a year of that loss – a meager regain in life expectancy. Jacob […]
November 21, 2023 — Men are coming up short in life expectancy. In fact, the gap in lifespan between men and women is now the widest it has been in three decades. Why? The short answer is COVID. But the truth is that it is more than just COVID. The pandemic took more lives from men because their underlying […]
March 26, 2023 — Food is medicine, say folks in certain food policy circles, and we have an abundant supply of it – especially in the U.S. So why is it true in this country that we have more food, find less joy in it, and live shorter lives? Eating More, Enjoying It Less, Losing Years of Life American […]
December 26, 2022 — This has been a good year in so many ways. COVID has moved into the background and people have been reconnecting. We’ve seen remarkable progress in understanding and care for obesity. Of course, we’ve hit some low points that help us to appreciate highlights even more. So here for your consideration is our short list […]
August 31, 2022 — It is nothing short of jaw dropping – U.S. life expectancy once again dropped by almost two years. This news comes from the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, which released provisional stats for 2021 today. Up until 2014, the U.S. had seen steady rises in life expectancy. Then in 2015, we saw a small […]
April 19, 2022 — The problem with doing things to prolong your life is that all the extra years come at the end, when you’re old. Bob Mankoff captured this fundamental quandary in a New Yorker cartoon years ago. But the problem of managing health and risks remains on our minds nonetheless. So a new study in JAMA Network […]
April 8, 2022 — It is a depressingly familiar story in America. We spend more on health and get less – the rich get richer and the sick get sicker. So now this means we’re getting less life expectancy. A new analysis by Ryan Masters, Laudan Aron, and Steven Woolf says that U.S. mortality increased last year. American life […]
July 15, 2021 — Stats are rolling in to put numbers on the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year we’ve just survived (apologies to Judith Viorst). Those stats tell us just how bad things had gotten. Life expectancy dropped more than ever since the World Wars. Deaths from drug overdoses jumped by 30 percent. It was a year […]
February 19, 2021 — The lifespan expected for a baby born in America during the first half of 2020 dropped by a year, compared to what it was in 2019. But for a Black child, the drop in life expectancy (2.7 years) was more than three times worse than for a White child (0.8 years). Life expectancy for a […]
October 16, 2020 — We understand. Surgery is daunting. Bias against people living with obesity is rampant. Some friends and family will criticize. Some doctors will discourage. Health plans often make it hard. So many people feel reluctance about seeking bariatric surgery. But a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine reminds us. This is not right. […]
