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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/03/17/1110913743754.html

 

Life expectancy to drop for first time in 1000 years

By Jacqueline Maley and Mark Todd

March 18, 2005

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Australians could be eating themselves to an early death, with new research

suggesting life expectancy will decline for the first time in 1000 years due

to the obesity epidemic.

 

A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine predicts a decrease

in life expectancy, which rose slowly but steadily last millennium. Experts

say Australia will mirror the trend. The drop will occur when the current

generation of obese and overweight adults reaches old age, and will worsen

when obese and overweight children hit middle age.

 

"It is distinctly possible that our children may live shorter lives than us.

It's a frightening prospect," study author Professor Jay Olshansky said

yesterday in Brisbane, where he attended the second International Conference

on Healthy Ageing and Longevity.

 

"It would be the first time in the modern era we would actually see one

generation experiencing a shorter life span than the previous generation."

 

Professor Olshansky likens obesity to a "threatening storm", which will have

a drastic effect on longevity if left unchecked.

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According to his research, the decline in life expectancy will occur in the

first half of this century. To start with, life spans will shorten by four

to eight months.

 

In coming decades, as obese children carry their elevated risks of death and

disease into older age, average life spans could fall by two to five years.

 

Life expectancy in the US, about 80 years for women and 75 for men, would

continue to rise for the next five to 10 years but level off and decline as

more obese children reached adulthood.

 

Obesity has been shown to reduce the length of life by about five to 20

years. About 68 per cent of Australian men and 52 per cent of Australian

women are overweight or obese, which puts them at an elevated risk of Type 2

diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

 

Adrian Bauman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney,

said the findings were applicable to Australia, which is tracking just

behind the US in obesity trends.

 

Currently, life expectancy is about 77 years for men and 82 years for women,

according to Commonwealth statistics.

 

"The decline in life expectancy is going to begin when the younger

generation starts to get diseases early - around 2030 or 2040," Professor

Bauman said.

 

Among the baby-boomer generation, diseases such as diabetes and heart

disease were expected to hit around age 60 or 65, he said. But about 20 per

cent of the current generation of children are overweight or obese, so those

diseases will manifest in them around five to 10 years earlier.

 

Cardiologists at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital have shown overweight and

obese children can begin developing thickened arteries and fatty deposits on

the arteries from the age of 11. These are reversible when the weight is

lost.

 

The findings, though dire, were not inevitable, said John Glover, the

director of the Public Health Information Development Unit at the University

of Adelaide. Governments could reduce obesity just as they had cut smoking

rates.

 

"A lot of people talk about how we might go about improving and overcoming

the problem of obesity, by increasing physical activity and modifying diet,"

he said.

 

Professor Bauman, of Sydney University, said although we knew the "cure" for

obesity - exercise and diet - we had been unable to implement it at a

population-wide level. Combating obesity required a whole-of-society

approach.

 

"There's isn't a pill for it," he said. "It's about working with urban

planning, the food industry, and the education sector."