Are you in your late 20s, healthy, vibrant and just launching your career or family? If it were 1915, you would already be middle-aged. One hundred years ago, the average woman’s life expectancy was only 56.8 years.
According to the CDC, the top three causes of death in 1915 were heart disease, pneumonia and influenza, and tuberculosis.
Thanks to the discovery of penicillin in 1928 and its widespread use by the 1940s, deaths due to respiratory infections declined precipitously over the last century. Antibiotics have played a key role in raising women’s life expectancy.
Your daughters and granddaughters born in 2015 can expect to live 86.8 years, an increase in 30 years over the last century.
Deaths from respiratory infections have dropped to number 9, making room for the three leading causes of death in the United States today: heart disease, cancer and non-infectious respiratory diseases such as COPD, bronchitis, emphysema and asthma.
Medical News Today reports that these top three causes account for over 50 percent of all deaths in the country.
For a look at the evolution of fatal illness in the U.S., check out What Kills Us in One Chart.
Decades of overuse of antibiotics and the consequent antibiotic resistance has raised concerns that infectious diseases will regain their foothold. The World Health Organization reported here on the threat of antimicrobal resistance (AMR) to global public health.
Groundbreaking news in the battle against superbugs was reported in January in the journal Nature. Teixobactin, a newly discovered antibiotic, is proving to outmaneuver antibiotic resistance. It is a promising development in the field of infectious disease.
There is also good news about Alzheimer’s disease, which has risen from the 9th to the 6th leading cause of death over the last hundred years. In December 2014, Stanford released research indicating that specific brain cells called microglia, described as “tough cops” in this Stanford Medicine article, consume invading bacteria and viruses in the brain, and also work to suppress inflammation and rid the brain of dead cells.
Discovery News explained, "Sometimes, a single tiny molecule, a protein called EP2, that lives on microglia goes haywire, and that's where the trouble starts. The misbehaving molecule tells the microglia to stop clearing out A-Beta and plaque starts to form in the brain — beginning the process of Alzheimer’s."
By blocking the EP2 molecule, the researchers at Stanford have reversed Alzheimers in mice.
The number one cause of death, heart disease, kills approximately one woman every minute. Visit the Go Red Campain by the American Heart Association to find out your risks.
Our biggest killer is the one most easily thwarted by a healthy lifestyle. Read Strategies to Prevent Heart Disease for heart-healthy tips.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Drs. Jones, Podolsky and Green wrote, "Just as organisms evolve to keep up with changing environmental conditions (the 'Red Queen Effect'), medicine struggles to keep up with the changing burden of disease."
In the battle of medicine versus disease, our 30-year increase in lifespan over the last century seems to prove medicine is the victor.
Sources:
What are the top 10 leading causes of death in the US? MedicalNewsToday.com.
Retrieved February 2, 2015.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php
Leading Causes of Death, 1900-1998. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/lead1900_98.pdf
Blocking receptor in brain’s immune cells counters Alzheimer’s in mice, study finds. MedStandford.edu. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/12/blocking-receptor-in-brains-immune-cells-counters-alzheimers.html
New Antibiotic May Combat Resistant Bacteria. WebMd.com. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
http://www.webmd.com/news/20150107/new-antibiotic-may-combat-resistant-bacteria
Life Expectancy Calculator. SocialSecurity.gov. Retrieved February 8, 2015.
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/cgi-bin/longevity.cgi
Reviewed February 10, 2015
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith