Maenoba Scientia - New versionlife expectancy

La diferencia de esperanza de vida entre hombres y mujeres tuvo su pico en unos seis años en los 70s. Hoy está subiendo en ambos sexos, pero más rápido en los hombres que en las mujeres. Se cree que la enorme disminución del número de hombres que fuman explica gran parte de este cambio.

Un estudio mostró que los hombres han estado por detrás de las mujeres por décadas pero hoy cada vez están más cerca, hasta el punto de que en 2030 se podrí­a igualar esta cifra en 87 años para ambos sexos. En los últimos aproximadamente veinte años, la esperanza de vida de los hombres a los 30 años ha subido alrededor de seis años y si sigue así­ durante los siguientes veinte años se igualará a la esperanza de vida de las mujeres.

Se cree que esto es porque los hombres hoy viven de forma más sana, sobre todo respecto al tabaco, ya que después de los años 20 hasta el 80% de los hombres fumaban y esta cifra se ha ido reduciendo. Otras razones son la seguridad de los trabajos de oficina ya que pocos hombres hoy dí­a trabajan en minas y a esto hay que sumar que hoy los enfermos de corazón tienen mucha más esperanza de vida que hace unos años atrás.

En contraste, las mujeres empezaron a fumar después de los hombres, lo que provoca que el número de cánceres de garganta no haga más que subir en las mujeres mientras que se reduce en el sexo masculino.

Otro estudio concluyó que en prácticamente todos los paí­ses del mundo las mujeres tienen una ligera ventaja sobre los hombres, pero también que esta distanciase está reduciendo en algunos otros. Los paí­ses con muy baja esperanza de vida, como en la ífrica subsahariana, tienen una muy baja diferencia entre géneros ya que hay muchas enfermedades infecciosas que contribuyen a nivelar la balanza. Sin embargo, en paí­ses donde estas enfermedades han sido vencidas en su mayorí­a, como es el caso del este de Europa, hay una diferencia mayor, sobre todo dominada por factores del estilo de vida.

Por último, en los paí­ses más desarrollados como Reino Unido, la diferencia entre hombres y mujeres se está estrechando, ya que los hombres se están comportando mejor y las mujeres están adoptando esperanzas de vida propias de los hombres.





Men set to live as long as women, according to new figures (April 2012)
The gap between male and female life expectancy is closing and men could catch up by 2030, according to an adviser for the Office for National Statistics.
Prof Les Mayhew said the difference between the sexes peaked at nearly six years in the 1970s. Life expectancy is going up all round, but the rates for men are increasing faster. Plummeting smoking rates in men are thought to explain a lot of the change.
Prof Mayhew, a professor of statistics at Cass Business School, analysed life expectancy data in England and Wales. He was working out how long 30-year-olds could expect to live.
Heart disease
His findings show men languishing far behind for decades, but now starting to get closer to women. If current trends continue, Prof Mayhew predicts, both sexes could, on average, be living to the age of 87 in 2030. He said, "What's interesting at the moment is that in the last 20 years or so, male life expectancy at 30 has jumped by about six years and if it jumps by the same amount in the next 20 years it will converge with female life expectancy."
The reason could be down to men living a healthier lifestyle. "One of the main reasons, I think, is the trend in the prevalence of smoking. Smoking took off after 1920 in the male population and at its high about 80% of males smoked. This was reflected in more divergence in the life expectancy, so by the time you get to about 1970 it was at its peak - the difference in life expectancy was about 5.7 years."
Other factors are thought to be safer, more office-based, jobs. Millions of men used to work in hazardous occupations such as coal mining. Furthermore, healthcare has meant more men live longer as well. People with heart disease, which is more common in men, can expect to live much longer than they did a few decades ago.
By contrast, women started smoking later than men. Rates of lung cancer are still increasing in women, but are falling fast in men. A boy and a girl born on the same day will still not have the same life expectancies, as the study looked only at people who had already reached 30. Boys are more likely to die in their first year of life and are more likely to take up dangerous sports or be involved in fatal accidents, which means that women could still have the edge for some time to come.
Global pattern
Prof David Leon, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "In virtually all countries in the world, women do have a slight advantage."
However, he said the gap was definitely closing in some countries. Countries with lower levels of life expectancy, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, showed very little difference between the genders. This was due to the prevalence of infectious diseases to which men and women are equally, he said.
In countries that had defeated most infectious diseases, such as in Eastern Europe, "there is a much bigger difference, mostly dominated by lifestyle factors".
At one point in the 1990s, the gap between life expectancies in Russia reached 13 years. Prof Leon said it was an "absolutely massive" difference in a "very gendered society".
In his third class of countries, such as the UK, the gap in life expectancies is starting to narrow, which he says is because men are getting a bit better behaved and women are adopting male life expectancies.

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