The lifespans of the healthiest Americans are more than 30 years longer than those of the least healthy, despite more than two decades of efforts to reduce the disparities, Harvard University researchers reported Monday. At one end of the scale are Asian-American women living in Bergen County, N.J., who have an average life expectancy of 91 years, according to the report published in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine. At the other extreme are American Indians in South Dakota, whose average life expectancy is only 58 years. ‘That’s comparable to the life expectancy in Southeast Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa,’ said Dr. Richard M. Suzman, associate director of the National Institute on Aging, which partially funded the study. The difference is not directly related to income, insurance, infant mortality, AIDS or violence, factors most commonly thought to be associated with such disparities. The most important contributors to increased mortality, in order of importance, are tobacco, alcohol, obesity, high-blood pressure, high cholesterol, diet and physical inactivity, said Dr. Christopher J. L. Murray of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study. ‘Those seven are likely to explain a lot of the patterns that […]