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Women Set To Outlive Men
Worldwide
Study:
Life expectancy for women
greater than men in most parts of the world now.
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By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
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This year may be the
first in which life expectancy is greater for the world's women
than for men, even in the poorest countries.
Researchers making
that prediction include Anna Barford, a research fellow at
England's University of Sheffield.
"We will never
know with certainty the exact year in which women can expect to
live on average longer than men, but this year -- 2006 -- is as
likely as any," Barford and colleagues write in
BMJ.
Life expectancy has
been greater for women than men in the U.S. and many other
countries for some time -- hundreds of years, in some cases. For
instance, women have outlived men since 1860 in the Netherlands,
1889 in Italy, and 1751 in Sweden, Barford's team reports.
But that hasn't
always been true in other countries, especially those with
scarce medical resources.
Last Places
on Earth Where Men Outlive Women
The World Health
Organization (WHO) reported in 2002 that in 2001, women outlived
men in all but six countries: Nepal, Botswana, Zimbabwe,
Lesotho, Bangladesh, and Swaziland.
That list changed in
2003-2005, when the WHO reported that men were living slightly
longer than women in just two countries -- Qatar and the
Maldives.
The U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has different records,
according to Barford's team. They checked the CIA's 2005
World Factbook
and found that women outlived men in Qatar and the Maldives but
not in some other places on the WHO's list.
So which group is
right? Where are the last places on earth where men live longer
than women?
Barford's team
doesn't go there. They call the CIA's data source "vague, as
befits a somewhat secretive organization."
Cigarettes
Could Change Everything
Medical advances
probably account for much of the shift in women's life
expectancy, write Barford and colleagues.
"We tend to forget
that in many countries of the world women could expect, until
recently, to live fewer years than men and that maternal
mortality in particular remains a big killer," they write,
adding that the change happened too quickly to be solely due to
biological change.
Another health risk
-- smoking -- might stop the trend in its tracks.
"Greater emancipation
has freed women to demand better health care and to behave more
like men, and most importantly to smoke," the researchers write.
They write that the
global gender gap in life expectancy "may not be a permanent
achievement, given that the largest remaining untapped market
for cigarettes in the world is made up of women living in poor
countries."
SOURCES: Barford, A.
BMJ,
April 8, 2006; vol 332: p 808. News release, BMJ.
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© 2006, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved. |
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