Yet still lower than other developed nations, especially considering the exorbitant expenditure (per capita) on healthcare.
The obesity rate in the US is 40%. The just-overweight rate is 33%. So unless we really ramp up on tackling obesity, the life expectancy is going be dragged down.
SubQ pen injections are something even most people afraid of needles can get used to quite quickly, so even if the pill forms never get to the same efficacy there's really no reason that they couldn't solve it for most everyone once they go generic and become affordable, or become otherwise subsidized. China already produces the APIs in huge quantities for insanely cheap for sale on the black market, so we know that they can be produced for extremely low costs.
The tragedy of short term thinking.
This is the even more effective pill that is about to hit the market:
https://www.lilly.com/news/stories/what-to-know-about-orforg...
>11. How much will orforglipron cost?
>LLilly recently announced an agreement with the U.S. government to expand access to its obesity medicines and reduce patient costs. Upon FDA approval, self-pay patients living with obesity will be able to access orforglipron through LillyDirect's self-pay pharmacy channel with the lowest dose starting at $149 with additional doses up to $399.
Maybe it should be free but it's quite affordable at 50, that is relatively easy to make up in saved junk-food/snack costs.
It also doesn’t seem to vary that much by state level healthcare differences. States vary quite a bit by geography, but states that didn’t do Medicaid expansion, like Wisconsin and Wyoming, seem to have similar rates to neighboring states that did.
Does the gap in obesity rates fully explain the difference in life expectancy? Or are there other factors at play?
I don't think it actually does, because UK has lower obesity rates than Australia (26-29% versus 32%), yet also lower life expectancy (Australia is 81.1 male, 85.1 female; UK is 78.8 male, 82.8 female)
Lifestyle seems to play a huge role in life expectancy. Mormons live 10 years longer than white Americans generally: https://www.deseret.com/2010/4/13/20375744/ucla-study-proves.... That’s a huge difference—it dwarfs the 2.5 years difference between men in the U.S. and men in the UK.
Diversity means diversity in health outcomes, which are vastly different between groups.
No it's not. White non Hispanic population in the U.S. has a life expectancy of 77.5, which is lower than the U.S. average life expectancy and comparable to Eastern Europe, but not Europe as a whole (life expectancy of 81.4).
There is a lot of evidence of a causal relationship between being non-white and having less access to healthcare, nutrition, and other things that affect health outcomes, and that evidence aligns well with being targets of racial discrimination.
When we just repeat baseless claims about race, we risk perpetuating it.
I've never seen evidence of a racial difference in accessing health care that is accessible. It's hard to believe skin color would affect that, while it's easy to believe (and witness) that it affects what you have access to.
Your argument about access to healthcare based on race doesn’t make sense either. Hispanics in the U.S. live longer than white people, despite having the highest rate of lacking health insurance.
The null hypothesis is usually that there is no effect. Otherwise we'd say 'do life forms from the Andromeda galaxy affect climate change? We have no data, so shouldn't make an assumption either way.'
Correlations aren't perfect, but you'd need data correlating it with race. East Asia has many other differences such as diet. Why the drive to find an intellectual basis for discrimination based on race? It generally has only reflected biases and has had very bad consequences.
It’s also harmful. We know, for example, that south asians develop cardiac problems at lower BMIs than other groups. We know biology is a dominant factor in longevity: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/health/longevity-lifespan.... We need to follow these leads so we can give people the best medical advice. The possibility of bias isn’t an excuse. Doctors have an obligation to address medical differences that are real and exist while not succumbing to bias. You gotta walk and chew gum at the same time.