But diseases occur, and they have an impact on lives and lifestyles. The idea of wellness is to sustain a vigorous and active life with social engagement and accomplishments well into old age. Eventually, chronic conditions emerge, but staving them off as long as possible is always the goal.
Unfortunately, everyone dies of something at some point. For the first time, researchers have a picture of just what impact certain diseases have on lifespan, thanks to a report that examined older people and determined which diseases had the greatest measured impact on living life.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently released a report detailing the effects of multiple medical problems on a person’s potential lifespan.
The determination wasn’t one-size-fits-all in its conclusions. Research revealed that, as expected, multiple physical problems can cascade into overall misery. For each additional ailment, people lived an average of 1.8 fewer years than expected. However, unique circumstances made it difficult to predict, and several conditions had minimal effect while others had a huge impact.
The World Health Organization claims the average American will live until just short of his or her 80th birthday. But diabetes, heart failure, kidney disease or other chronic illnesses (many of which are now the norm and widespread in America) will subtract years from that projected lifespan.
Interestingly, the world is aging. There soon will be more old people than children, and more elders are living to extreme old age than ever before. That leads to a question of how they will live those years – will they have good health and well-being, or will they merely face a prolonged period of illnesses and ailments, thanks to modern medicine and newly developed treatments?
The Johns Hopkins study looked at the medical history of nearly 1.5 million people aged 67 and older. All of the patients were enrolled in Medicare. Their conclusions were that a 75-year-old woman who had no serious existing medical conditions would likely live nearly 17 more years. However, lifespan declined as medical conditions increased. Those who had five conditions would live an additional 12 years. Those with 10 would live just five more.
The type of disease also determined how the lifespan was affected. Heart disease can be managed, while Alzheimer’s disease is incurable and will slowly cause deterioration.
What these findings point to is the need to manage the onset of certain conditions at an earlier stage, and to be aware that multiple conditions will require a delicate balancing act in treatment. As more organ systems become involved and more medications are taken to reduce issues, conflicts can arise and side effects can mount, in some cases making the so-called “cures” worse than the diseases they’re trying to manage.
Prevention, Rather Than Cure
Medical professionals say the research that proves the impact of multiple diseases points to the need to control certain symptoms earlier in their cycle. For example, the age-old admonition to lose weight takes on added currency when we know it can help reduce the cycle of high blood pressure and adult-onset diabetes, which themselves can lead to a cascade of problems. Ideally, the knowledge of how much life is being wasted by certain activities will prove a powerful incentive to modify behavior.
Beyond the individual, knowing the impact of certain conditions on lifespan may prove beneficial to government planners. Social Security and Medicare administrators have to make calculations on costs extending into the future. When they realize that 60 percent of those aged 67 and older have three or more medical conditions, which can actuarially indicate a lifespan shortened within certain parameters, they can better calculate potential government payouts. The only problem is that medical discoveries can influence the management of certain diseases, thereby extending lifespan beyond what was anticipated at the time the government calculations were made.
Obesity and Lifespan
Of all conditions, obesity has the greatest effect on lifespan because it is the triggering event for a host of chronic diseases.
A study by the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the United States National Institutes of Health, found that people who are extremely obese had a major reduction in life expectancy, mostly because of the incidences of diabetes, cancer, heart, liver and kidney diseases stemming from the condition.
In the United States, about 6 percent of adults are more than 100 pounds higher than the recommended range for normal weight. That calculation is based on the body mass index, which measures total body fat and is calculated by dividing a person’s weight by their height. Those with a body mass of 40 or higher are considered extremely obese.
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute found that the risks of dying and developing more major health problems rose continuously as body mass increased. Years of life lost was determined at 6.5 years for those with a BMI of 40 to 44.9 to 13.7 years for those with a BMI of 55-59. It means that level of being overweight was the equivalent of being a smoker in terms of impact on the body and mortality. The bad news is that extreme obesity is increasing in the United States and elsewhere in the world, creating a health crisis that soon may develop into the major cause of death in the United States and other countries.
Ultimately, staying healthy is a matter of following basic protocols in maintaining a healthy weight, exercising and regularly checking health. After that, good genes, luck, finances and emotional state will play major roles in determining whether major diseases will significantly shorten the lifespan.