Life Expectancy in U.S. Declines Slightly

It’s recently been discovered that the life expectancy  for Americans has declined. This is actually the first time this has happened since H.I.V. related deaths were at an all time high in 1993. The increase in the death rate was over 86,000. The main issue with this happening is that researchers aren't able to find a single cause for this occurrence. The possible causes range from heart disease to suicides. Dr. Peter Muennig, a professor of health policy and management at Colombia University’s Mailman School of Public Health stated that, “A .01 decrease is huge. Life expectancy increases, and that's very consistent and predictable, so to see it decrease, that's very alarming.” Dr. Muennig believes that the reason for the decline in life expectancy can be pointed at the increase in both obesity rates and opioids. There is also a connection between the decline and race. The life expectancy for working class white people has dropped which could be because of alcohol abuse, suicide and economic issues. Income also has an effect because of the stress put on from financial troubles. The life expectancy for women continues to be higher than men by 4.9 years which has actually increased since 2014. The recent changes won’t pose a threat unless this decline continues to keep happening.

Ebola Injected into Mice

In Hamilton, MT scientists are working with ebola infected mice, finding that host genes might play a very important role in seeing if the disease is fatal or not. The team in hamilton hope that their findings can speed up vaccine production for ebola. They have learned that the severity of ebola infection is not always because of the actual virus.

Studies that were previously done for Ebola have shown that the people infected with ebola is not because of the virus but because of factors of the host. Some can resist the virus, some have mild, and others have it fatally. The infection severity might be explained by the Ebola virus effect on genes. The team found that although the mice lost weight within the first week of the infection, 19% of them were not severly affetced by it. It ended up that less then half of the group died from the virus. When the team looked at the genes of the mice it showed that ebola infection and rates of death lined up with genetic patterns.

This research study could really benefit many people who are infected with the ebola virus now. Since the ebola virus is growing in some countries this could really help with vaccine production and save many lives. Although many people are not supposed to die because of the dieases they are because of no prevention or vaccines to make it stop. This study could be very beneficial.

Article link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284708.php

Supporting link: http://viralzone.expasy.org/all_by_species/207.html