Longevity gains slow across Europe - with lifestyle a main factor

Gains in life expectancy have slowed across Europe in recent years, notably in England, according to a study that underscores the need to tackle unhealthy lifestyles.

The findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet Public Health, show that a decades-long improvement in life expectancy stalled after 2011. England saw the greatest slowdown, while Norway was the only country in the study where life spans continued to extend between the 21 years ended in 2011 and a second shorter period of eight years ended in 2019.

The main drivers behind the trend are cardiovascular disease and cancer, fueled by expanding waistlines, poor diet, sedentary lifestyles and high alcohol consumption, the researchers said.

While drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have made obesity reversible, researchers believed the fundamental issue of eating "toxic foods" needs to be addressed by adding labels on ultra-processed foods and making fresh, healthy items widely available.

Meanwhile, another study found that environmental and lifestyle factors play a far greater role than genetics in determining the likelihood of dying young - the largest study yet to untangle the contributions of nature and nurture to healthy aging.

A range of external factors including exercise and smoking - collectively dubbed the "exposome" - was almost 10 times more likely than genetic risk factors to explain premature mortality, according to the researched published in the Nature Medicine journal.

Researchers analyzed mortality trends in the UK Biobank, which stores medical and genetic data from about 500,000 people.

Many of the factors found to be linked to longer life were proxies for wealth and status, such as years of education, gym use and household income.

Factors from childhood, including whether a mother smoked around the time of her baby's birth and a person's being "relatively plumper" at around the age of 10, were linked to cellular signs of aging as an adult. Being shorter at the age of 10 was associated with a lower mortality risk, however.

Bloomberg