June 29--SEBRING -- Every generation of Americans has lived longer than the one before, until this one.
In 313 American counties -- including Hardee County -- the life expectancy for women has declined. In Polk County, the average age at death rose only 0.3 of a year, as opposed to 1.3 years for most U.S. women.
While life expectancy in Highlands County and America as a whole has continued to rise steadily for the last 20 years, a new study shows that life expectancy for women declined by two years in swathes of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Paradoxically, the life expectancy of men declined in only six counties, though the study found that men in these same areas tended to have worse outcomes than men elsewhere.
Another finding: on the average, American women in 1987 lived about seven years longer than men; women in 2007 are living just five years longer.
Though experts don't know the exact cause of the trend, Brenda Garza, manager of Florida Hospital's Diabetes Center, has some clues: "This is a fast-food generation. They're killing themselves eating at fast-food restaurants."
In the past 20 years, the percentage of working women has risen from 45 percent to 60 percent. They're more likely than men to have college degrees and increasingly are taking management and executive roles, according to the 2010 U.S. census.
Like their male counterparts, Garza added, women are stressing more, they're eating the wrong kinds of foods and they're becoming obese. That leads to diabetes and that leads to heart disease.
Women weigh more these days than they did 20 years ago, and Garza is seeing more gestational diabetes, which in many women is the result of obesity.
"They're overweight at a younger age," Garza said. And that leads to...
"Seventy to 80 percent of diabetics are going to die from the complications of heart disease," Garza said.
The data
Culling death certificate statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, researchers tracked life expectancy at the county level from 1987 to 2007.
"We have talked about this trend as being the biggest decline in life expectancy since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 in the U.S.," said Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health at U.W., which issued the report. He speculated that increases in the prevalence of major risk factors for chronic diseases -- especially obesity and smoking among women -- were probable, though not definitive, causes of lower life expectancy.
"That is just so surprising," said Gino Solla, director of the Ector County Health Department, in eastern Texas, where life expectancy for women decreased by more than seven months between 1987 and 2007. "I could offer you an explanation, but I'd just be shooting in the dark."
Patrice Beverly is the Health Education Coordinator for Pike County, Ky., on the eastern tip of the state bordering Virginia and West Virginia. Life expectancy for women decreased in nearly this entire region. Pike is one of only two counties in the country where life expectancy decreased for both men and women.
"For men, that makes more sense, because so many men work in the coal mines," Beverly said, adding that a larger proportion of men are employed in mining than in the past for lack of other opportunities. "But I don't know about the women. The only trend that I can think of is possibly that women have gone back to work, which adds the stress of keeping up a job to keeping up a family."
When they're still of child-bearing age, women are protected from heart disease by their hormones, Garza said.
"After menopause, women aren't protected as much," she said.
Both men and women can increase their life expectancy by learning how to cut down on inflammation in the body, she said. "That means what kinds of foods to eat, and the amounts."
She teaches the CHIP program, the Coronary Health Improvement Project, which shows people how to lower their cholesterol and how to lose weight.
One reason why the average life expectancy of men is getting closer to women, Garza said: "Men have a higher metabolism than women, and men have more muscle mass, so it makes it easier for them to lose weight."
Her advice for living longer: learn.
"After our classes, we follow up in six months, and last year, 100 percent of those who were overweight lost weight and they brought down their blood sugars."
Highlands Today reporter Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlands today.com or 863-386-5828
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