Avoiding the grave isn’t everything (Image: Amy Eckert/Getty)

We might be living for longer than ever, but we are sick. About 95 per cent of people have at least one health complaint, with a third of us having more than five. Becoming better at avoiding early death means we spend longer being susceptible to diseases and disabilities that result from our bodies wearing out.

So ironically, by pushing back death in the name of health, we are creating more disability overall than if we died younger.

“The focus of health has been so much on tackling causes of death, rather than disability,” says Theo Vos of the University of Washington in Seattle, one of the authors of a study evaluating how patterns of disease and ill health have changed in 188 countries between 1990 and 2013.


The number of years of healthy life lost globally rose from 537.6 million in 1990 to 764.8 million in 2013, a rise of 43 per cent. The authors attribute this mainly to population growth and ageing. The leading causes of loss of healthy years were lower-back pain and depression, which were among the top 10 causes of lost years of health in all 188 countries.

Live long and don’t prosper

Other common complaints include tooth cavities, tension-type headaches, iron-deficiency anaemia, hearing loss, genital herpes and migraine.

The toll of infectious diseases is dropping though: diarrhoeal disease was the highest ranked, at 25th, and down from 15th place in 1990. In their place are conditions brought on by poor lifestyle, obesity and ageing. For example, rates of diabetes have risen 43 per cent since 1990, but death rates from the disease are only up 9 per cent.

Vos is confident, however, that the diseases and disabilities of ageing are gradually being managed better, through better treatments and healthier lifestyles. “On an age-to-age basis, rates of disability are coming down, although slowly,” he says. “At each age over time, we see small improvements.”

Some researchers say that a complete upheaval in health systems is needed, which shifts resources from treating disease in hospitals to preventing diseases in the community and in people’s homes.

“Don’t wait for illness, invest in the maintenance of health,” says Rifat Atun of Harvard University, the author of an accompanying commentary. “We can’t manage these chronic conditions in hospitals, so there needs to be an emphasis on maintaining good health, preventing disease and slowing progression of disease when it does happen,” he says. “There’s no choice: it has to happen.”

Journal references: The Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60692-4; Commentary: DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62254-6