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by adventured 4811 days ago
The US is within a small margin of error to being on par with both Japan (adjusting for their huge fraud in longevity) and South Korea on life expectancy. That sure sounds amazing considering our obesity / diet problems. I'd argue in fact that our advanced healthcare system and large investment is the only reason Americans aren't dying at 70 instead - we're able to keep people alive that would otherwise die much younger. I'd argue if you matched diets to other countries with very high life expectancies, we'd easily match or surpass them in longevity and live to 83 to 85. Our problem is mostly lifestyle.

Infant mortality? What, you think Bosnia and Russia actually beat the US in infant mortality, or is it more likely they're lying? (given Russian men live to 60).
3 comments
adaml_623 4808 days ago
I don't understand your reply. Two sources show that the US is 51st[1] and 40th[2] in the country rankings for life expectancy? I'm not sure what Japan and Korea have to do with it. Definitely not leading the field

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...

[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

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FireBeyond 4810 days ago
And for the average American, between 10 and 20 per cent of your lifetime healthcare costs accrue in the last 1-3 months of your life. Beyond healthcare, America has a problem with dying and death, and a willingness to spend vast amounts of money on someone who is at death's door, often in a manner that negatively affects the quality of the remainder of their life, and for what - other people? Sometimes even for no-one.
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analog 4811 days ago
Bosnia and Russia are both listed as having worse infant mortality rates than the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mor...

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adventured 4811 days ago
I was going by the CIA factbook.

It lists Bosnia at 6.1 (50% lower than the Wiki).

The Wiki entry claims it uses the CIA factbook as a source. So I'm not really sure which source that Wiki entry is relying on.

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analog 4811 days ago
The first table in the Wikipedia entry uses UN estimates which have Bosnia at 13 deaths per 1000 births.
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