Cardiovascular disease drives life expectancy gains — or not

In January, reports of an upward blip in life expectancy in 2018 buoyed hopes built on declining deaths from cancer and drug overdoses. Now a new study says rising life expectancy stalled from 2014 to 2017 not because of drug overdoses but because of a slowing decline in deaths from cardiovascular disease. Rising drug-related deaths depressed life expectancy by one-tenth of a year in women and four-tenths of a year in men. But the sluggish improvement in cardiovascular mortality dampened improvement more, by 1.14 years in both women and men — meaning future gains need to come from somewhere else. “The opioid epidemic has clearly contributed to recent stagnation. ... CVD mortality, however, is the main culprit,” the study says.