why did she grow up so much in Great Britain? And in Italy? – breaking latest news

In just over a decade they are in Great Britain 250 thousand people died earlier than expectednot just the elderly. As revealed by a survey published by the English weekly The Economist, the excess mortality also affects young adults and middle-aged people, between 40 and 64 years. E it’s not just Covid. But what are the reasons? a trend that registers (or could register) Also in Italy?

The analysis

In the UK, based on calculations byEconomistin 2022 there was a higher number of deaths than one would have expected, in the age group between 50 and 64 years. The main ones causes of excess deaths it was there
cardiovascular diseases
,
diabetes, liver disease. According to the English weekly, some of these deaths may have been caused by consequences of the pandemiclike theinterruption of health carethe missed diagnoses and the poor prevention. But, for the people
between 40 and 64 yearsthe cardiovascular disease mortality rates were on the rise well before Covid. Understanding what went wrong is not easy explains the English weekly, which indicates among the possible causes the high rate of obesity – associated with increased mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer – increased faster in Britain than in most other rich countries.
And especially, people die earlier than expected in the poorest cities. A young Englishman in poverty has an average life expectancy of 9.5 years less than a rich man of his own age, a poor girl lives on average 7.7 years less than a wealthy girl.

Factors affecting health

After all, it is known that personal behaviors and lifestyles also influence a person’s health (smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle), environmental factors, social and economic conditions. For example, cold, damp homes can increase the risk of developing heart and respiratory disease; and low income o un’limited education they can worsen the choices a person makes regarding nutrition.
According to the analysis ofEconomistmoreover, the problems of the English Health Service (NHS), coi funding cuts and the reduction of public health interventions which, if they had been timely and effective, they could have reduce the percentage of deaths in Great Britain, higher than the average of OECD – Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

What happens in our country

But the phenomenon observed byEconomist in Great Britain it concerns (or could concern) even Italians between 40 and 60 years old? What has increased mortality from cardiovascular disease in the UK – and even more in the US – at least for now it has not occurred in Italy comments Professor Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, who summarizes the main reasons that differentiate us from Great Britain: We no longer die of a heart attack as in the 70s-80s, therefore decreased cardiovascular mortality and increased life expectancy, and more than that is difficult to do; in our country, then, there was no increase in obesity like in Great Britain nor was there excessive use of opiates (for pain control, ndr) which caused numerous deaths in that country as well as in the United States; from us drink less alcohol compared to the rest of Europe.

Less alcohol and smoke

Carlo La Vecchia, professor of Epidemiology at the State University of Milan confirms: I Anglo-Saxon data on excess mortality in the age range included between 40 and 65 years old
they are not transferable to Italy today. Thanks to the progress that has taken place since the mid-eighties, in our country the heart attack mortality of less than 5 percent, for those who arrive at the hospital; therefore, that downward trend, which lasted until 2015, is running out. Another fundamental reason that middle-aged men gave up smoking. In Italy, then, there has not been an epidemic of overweight and obesity such as that which occurred in North America and Northern Europe, and also the alcohol consumption dropped from the 30 liters of pure alcohol consumed on average by an adult per year in the late 1970s and early 1980s, to the current 5 liters of ethanol per year; instead in the United Kingdom the consumption of alcohol increased a lot.

We have an excess of mortality (among the elderly) due to Covid

Even in Italy, life expectancy at birth can change depending on the region where you live. Certainly – explains Professor La Vecchia – the socio-economic conditions influence the excess mortality but, if a poor person living in Glasgow has a life expectancy of around 60 years, in Italy the situation is not so dramatic even in the poorest areasfor example from Calabria or Sicily, where everyone has access to fruit, vegetables and other typical foods Mediterranean diet. In Italy, for, – emphasizes the epidemiologist – we have recorded a excess mortality among elderly people due to the pandemic, compared to other Western countries (except the United Kingdom), both due to the effect of Covid and the lack of immediate interventions in emergency situations, with poorly managed heart attacks and strokes. The decline in life expectancy, which has now subsided, essentially reflects the state of the National Health Service, poor and underfunded compared to other countries, which did not hold up especially in the most dramatic period, La Vecchia concludes during the first wave.