[Elrac]

As far as I know, the US is the only prosperous country where life expectancies are going down. Makes one sit back and think, no?

A lot of factors are probably involved as you say, but if I had to guess at the elephant-in-the-room dominant factor I'd say it's the US's model of what's euphemistically called "health care" and "health insurance." It's a complete no-brainer that people who can't afford medical treatment are dying earlier.

[TangoTrotFox]

Look at the reasons that people are dying. It's been blamed on things like the opioid crisis but the numbers in no way support such 'hypothesis', which don't even really qualify as such.

Cardiovascular disease, heart failure, stroke, diabetic complications, etc are where the big increases are coming from. And nearly all the major causes of death that are increasing are strongly linked with obesity, which is skyrocketing out of control. This is what I was alluding to early when suggesting that this change is, in turn, blamed on lethargic lifestyles, the internet, etc yet such changes are also happening in other nations yet they are not experiencing such radical shifts in lack of healthfulness.