Get richer, die younger: study
AFP - We all live longer when times are good, right?
Not so, according to a new study which says that in developed countries, the elderly have a higher mortality rate when the economy goes into higher gear.
Even its authors are baffled by the outcome.
The finding was "highly unexpected", Herbert Rolden from the Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing in the Netherlands, told AFP.
In the long term, economic prosperity is credited with lower mortality rates across all age groups -- largely due to a drop in old-age mortality.
But the picture changes when you look at short-term economic fluctuations, according to the study which appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
For every rise of one percentage point in a country's gross domestic product, mortality among 70-74-year-old men rose by 0.36 percent and for women of the same age by 0.18 percent, it found.
Among 40-45-year-olds, the corresponding rise was 0.38 percent for men and 0.16 for women.
The study analysed mortality and economic growth figures from 1950 to 2008 in 19 developed countries -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and several in Europe.
http://www.france24.com/en/20131008-get-richer-die-younger-study
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