It only increased by 0.1 years between 2017 and 2018. For both women and men, life expectancy is progressing only slightly in France, according to a study by the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), published in the newsletter Populations and Societies this Wednesday March 13 and based on figures from INSEE. In 2018, the fairer sex lived on average 85.4 years, the male race 79.5 years. The same year, the number of deaths was 601,000 in mainland France. This is the first time that it has exceeded 600,000 since the end of World War II.
“Life expectancy has only increased slightly in recent years, confirms Gilles Pison, professor at the National Museum of Natural History in the report. She has gained only 0.7 years for men in the past five years, and only 0.4 years for women. “ He explains it first of all by the three seasonal influenza epidemics which marked the period, and caused an increase of about 20,000 deaths per wave. “They reduce life expectancy at birth of the year from 0.1 to 0.3 years”, he specifies. But this effect would be “Cyclical”, and other causes are responsible for slowing its progression.
Room for progress
In France, cardiovascular illnesses and the cancers are now the main causes of death. And if for half a century, mortality linked to cardiac pathologies has greatly decreased thanks to the “cardiovascular revolution”, its fallout “Are in the process of exhaustion” over the past ten years, says Gilles Pison. Cancer mortality is decreasing in men, but this decrease is less in women. A phenomenon that the researcher explains by the democratization of smoking among them in the years 1950 to 1980. “They suffer the consequences a few decades later in the form of a rise in tobacco-related cancers”.
However, the French situation is not an isolated case. “The same slowdown in the progress of life expectancy can be observed in the countries of Northern and Western Europe”, explained by the same reasons, he notes. With more than 87 years of life expectancy, Japanese women hold the world record. “They show that there is still room for improvement before reaching any limits. “
According to Professor Gilles Pison, as with the fight against infections, the fight against cardiovascular disease and cancer will also eventually run out of steam. So that life expectancy continues to increase, “New areas of struggle such as neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, etc.) and medical and social innovations will then have to take over”, he concludes.
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