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Previous Volume 352:1138-1145 March 17, 2005 Number 11 Next

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ABSTRACT

Forecasts of life expectancy are an important component of public policy that influence age-based entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Although the Social Security Administration recently raised its estimates of how long Americans are going to live in the 21st century, current trends in obesity in the United States suggest that these estimates may not be accurate. From our analysis of the effect of obesity on longevity, we conclude that the steady rise in life expectancy during the past two centuries may soon come to an end.

Source Information

From the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago (S.J.O., D.J.P., R.C.H., J.L., J.B.); University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City (B.A.C.); University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco (L.H.); International Longevity Center, New York (R.N.B.); University of Alabama, Birmingham (D.B.A.); and Children's Hospital, Boston (D.S.L.).

Address reprint requests to Dr. Olshansky at the University of Illinois, 1603 W. Taylor St., Rm. 885, Chicago, IL 60612, or at sjayo{at}uic.edu.

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Obesity and Longevity
Whitehouse F. W., Simon P. A., Frye D. M., Blanchard B. M., Carpenter A. H., Suter P. M., Moser C., Preston S. H.
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N Engl J Med 2005; 352:2555-2557, Jun 16, 2005. Correspondence

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