[extropy-chat] Reasons for longer life.

[BillK]

In the other thread Robin Hanson makes the claim that 15% of US income
is spent on medical treatments and, of that 15%, 5% is useless and 10%
of debatable value.

But he also agrees that in developed countries life expectancy has
been increasing steadily for the last 100 years. But he claims that
nobody knows why.

I think the confusion arises because these are two different subjects
with no direct relationship. The RAND study said that they saw no
effect on death rates, so they tested against various 'health'
factors. A lot of medicine is not for life-threatening conditions. It
is to make people feel better or function better. But if you are
bleeding to death or need your appendix removed, then medical
intervention *will* increase your life expectancy.

To help in the confusion, life expectancy is also multi-factorial. For
example, TB, cholera and polio have virtually disappeared in developed
countries, but smoking-related disease, obesity, diabetes, etc. were
increasing as the others were reducing.

One method of finding out why some countries have greater life
expectancy than others is to look at the differences between these
countries. Obviously some differences will have little or no effect on
life expectancy, but others will.

This has been attempted by the World Health Organization.
To summarize, they end up stating the obvious, namely, that if you
live in poverty, have little food or clean water, have little access
to medicines or health care, have little health education, possibly
live in a polluted or dangerous environment, - then you are not going
to live as long.

For HALE by country, see:
<http://www3.who.int/whosis/hale/hale.cfm?path=whosis,bod,hale&language=english>

Burden of Disease stats:
<http://www.who.int/healthinfo/bod/en/index.html>

World Health report 2005
<http://www.who.int/whr/2005/en/index.html>

In undeveloped countries infant mortality is a major problem. This
year almost 11 million children under five years of age will die from
causes that are largely preventable. Among them are 4 million babies
who will not survive the first month of life. At the same time, more
than half a million women will die in pregnancy, childbirth or soon
after.
Fixing this has probably been one of the biggest factors in increasing
life expectancy in developed countries.

Many diseases that still kill millions worldwide have been virtually
eliminated from developed countries. But lately, obesity and smoking
related diseases (and other factors also) have slowed  the increasing
life expectancy in developed countries.

And, of course, even in many developed countries, there are large
ghetto areas of very poor people who will reduce the national average
life expectancy. (Yes, richer people do live longer!).

So, to sum up, Robin could well be correct to say that most of the US
medical expenditure today is just for a 'feel-good' factor. But a lot
of life-extending facilities are taken for granted and done for little
expense. e.g. vaccinations, clean water, disinfectant, hygiene,
aspirin, antibiotics, etc. You can see what happens in countries where
these cheap 'taken-for-granted' items are not available.

BillK