25/11/2008
Residents in the European Union's wealthier nations live in good health up to 14 years longer than their more recent EU neighbours to the east, according to a major study published on 17th November.

Life expectancy in Europe has been steadily climbing, and reached an average of 78.6 years for men who were 50 in 2005, and 83.5 years for women.

The gap between nations with the shortest and longest average lifespan was 9.1 years for men (71.3 in Lativa compared to 80.4 in Italy), and a narrower 6.1 years for women (79.3 in Latvia and 85.4 in France).

What has remained unclear, however, was how many of these added years were spent in good - and potentially productive - health.

Sifting though national and European statistics, a team of researchers led by Carol Jagger at the University of Leicester in Britain found huge gaps across the continent.

On average, a 50-year-old man from Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden or Malta will live well past 70 without disability or the need to limit his activities - ten extra years of healthy life compared to his neighbours in Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania. The highest average age is 73.6 in Denmark, and the lowest 59.0 in Estonia.

Roughly the same countries occupy either end of the health spectrum for women, according to the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

"Generally, citizens of the established European community" - the so-called EU-15 nations - "have both longer and healthier lives than do most of those of the ten new EU countries," the researchers conclude.

The study found that productive health among seniors was directly linked to the wealth of the nation and the percentage of its gross domestic product spent on elderly care.

Source: AFP