Paying a Physical Price for Longer Life
Americans are living longer, but those added years are more likely to be a time of disease and disability.
An analysis of government data has found that while life expectancy has steadily increased over the past decade, the prevalence of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes has also increased, and disability has grown as well.
A 20-year-old man today can expect to live about a year longer than a 20-year-old in 1998, but will spend 1.2 years more with a disease, and 2 more years unable to function normally.
Full article on the cost of our longer life spans.
This is a bit of a depressing finding.
Maybe we should return to smoking and over-eating.
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.