After Inching Up for Years, Life Expectancy Drops Slightly

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The life expectancy for Americans has fallen by about a month after steadily rising for years, the government said.

A baby born in 2008 will live to be about 77.8 years old, which has dipped since its all-time peak of 77.9 years in 2007, according to a preliminary report released Thursday.

"For the first time in history, it is possible that total life expectancy will be higher for the parents than the children," longevity expert Dr. Walter M. Bortz, the author of "Living Longer for Dummies" and "Road Map to 100," told AOL Health. "I think it's the American lifestyle. In those counties [where the life expectancy is going down] the smoking rates and obesity rates are the highest."

Life expectancy also dropped slightly in 2005 and 1993. It was down in 2008 for both women and men, but women still live longer -- to about 80 years old compared to 75 for men.

The lead author of the report, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, said the 2008 decline is so small as to be insignificant. Arialdi Minino said it wouldn't be known for years whether it represented an actual trend.

"2008 was not much different from 2007," Minino told the Associated Press. "Once you look under the hood, and look at the trends and the causes, you do find differences. But overall, it wasn't that different."

While Bortz agreed it's wise to be cautious about the latest findings, he said a drop in U.S. life expectancy has been anticipated for a while.

"Everyone is looking for it to happen. We expect it's going to happen," he said. "It's predictable."

The gap between the life expectancy for blacks and whites shrank slightly, to 4.6-years. For the first time, black men's average age of death was above 70. Life expectancy data for Hispanics hasn't been included in the annual reports because the data hasn't been relialble, according to the CDC.

Emory University health policy professor Ken Thorpe said the minor dip in overall life expectancy could be because of skyrocketing obesity rates in the United States. But the cause for the decrease wasn't clear.

"It's something to keep our eyes on," Thorpe told the AP.

U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Lag Behind Other Nations Female life expectancy on the drop in some U.S. counties Calculate your life expectancy Bortz said the solution is "behavior change."

"Have people walk, watch what they put in their mouth and how much they put in their mouth," he told AOL Health.

The CDC's report is based on almost all the death certificates for the year 2008. A final version will be released later.

The preliminary findings show that stroke dropped from its spot as the third leading cause of death for the first time in 50 years, replaced by chronic lower respiratory diseases like emphysema, persistent bronchitis and asthma.

Cancer and heart disease stayed put as the two top killers of people in the United States, contributing to half of all deaths.

Death rates fell for six of the 15 top causes of death: cancer, heart disease, stroke, murder, diabetes and accidents. Mortality rates rose for Alzheimer's disease, flu and pneumonia, suicide, kidney disease and high blood pressure.

The infant death rate dropped by about 2 percent to a record low of 6.59 deaths per 1,000 births.

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