Global life expectancy hits 68 years

Life expectancy worldwide rose steeply over the last half-century, a new United Nations report says.

In the 1950-55 period, average life expectancy was 47 years. From 2005-2010, the average human was expected to live 68 years.

The UN report, issued Friday, says people are living longer mainly because of improvements in nutrition and hygiene, as well as advances in vaccines and medical treatments against infectious and parasitic diseases.

Life expectancy increased the most in developing countries, where it now stands at 66 years, up from 41 years in 1950-55. It is still lowest in Africa, where HIV-AIDS has kept the average life expectancy at 55 years.

The UN report also says non-communicable diseases such as cancer and heart failure have supplanted communicable ones as the main causes of death.

Read more: www.cbc.ca...

68 years is surely better than 47, but I think we can do better. Keep in mind that these stats don't mean that most people actually die at 68 years old, rather it's an average taking into account newborn deaths and everything else, so it's more a reflection of the survival rate of children.

List by the United Nations (2005-2010) LINK

Rank / Country / Combined M+F / Male / Female

1 Japan 82.6 79.0 86.1
2 Hong Kong 82.2 79.4 85.1
3 Iceland 81.8 80.2 83.3
4 Switzerland 81.7 79.0 84.2
5 Australia 81.2 78.9 83.6

11 Canada 80.7 78.3 82.9

38 United States 78.2 75.6 80.8

195 Swaziland 39.6 39.8 39.4

Oh dear, As I am a perfectly average person, it stands to reason I only have 10 more years left to live ...
I seriously need to emigrate to Japan - what are the retirement homes like there? Surely chopsticks and arthritis don't go hand in hand?

It's amazing people here in the U.S. live around that long. Considering most people are pumped full of pharmaceuticals and eat food that is well...a poor excuse for food.

reply to post by ZombieOctopus


Your statistics are from 2006, the following information is from 2007.

hdrstats.undp.org...

Japan: 82.7
Hong Kong: 82.2
Iceland: 81.7
Switzerland: 81.7
Australia: 81.4

Canada: 80.6
United States: 79.1

Swaziland: 45.3

Redirected from here: hdrstats.undp.org...

[edit on 4/9/10 by Misoir]