Researchers say people who experience food insecurity have a higher risk of dying prematurely and having a shorter life expectancy after age 50, and are concerned about how a highly prevalent problem can impact an individual's health. It highlights what is there.
The federal government says food insecurity refers to “limited or uncertain access to adequate food,” or economic and social conditions that can lead to hunger. In an analysis published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that of the more than 57,400 U.S. adults who participated in the study, 78.4% were food sufficient; They found that 8.5% of people were marginally insecure, 7.4% had low levels of food security, and 5.6% had low levels of food security. Proportion of people experiencing very low food security.
The researchers also found that the estimated life expectancy at age 50 was 32.5 years for those with adequate food security, compared with 29.9 years for adults with marginal food security; They also found that it was 30 years for people with low food security and 28 years for people with very low food security.
This means that adults with very low food security will live 4.5 years less after age 50 than adults with full food security, and the researchers believe that the lost average About half of life expectancy can be attributed to death from cardiovascular disease or cancer, he said.
The analysis, based on survey data from 1999 to 2018, found that even marginal food security was associated with a 50% higher risk of premature death, defined as dying before age 80. It was also found that there is a correlation.
“This discovery could have major implications for public health,” the researchers wrote. “Our findings show that improving food security, in addition to encouraging people to improve their lifestyle and cardiovascular health, may be a way to curb the stagnation in life expectancy among U.S. residents. This suggests that there is a possibility that
The new findings are based on preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that after two consecutive years of decline, life expectancy in the U.S. rebounded by just over a year in 2022, largely due to lower death rates from the coronavirus. was announced following. 19. Total life expectancy at birth increased from 76.4 years in 2021 to 77.5 years in 2022.
A new study finds that women with very low food security live an average of 5.8 years less at age 50 than women with sufficient food security. On the other hand, men with very low food security had a life expectancy three years shorter than men with adequate food security for their age group.
The researchers also found that “the association between level of food security and early mortality appears to be stronger for women than for men.”
“In most cases, women have a higher level of decision-making power than men when it comes to purchasing and distributing food within their families,” the researchers said. “This role within the family can place additional psychological strain on women when faced with food insecurity, with some women sacrificing their own nutritional intake in order to cover as much of their family's nutritional intake as possible. There may be.”
Researchers found that adults with lower levels of food security were more likely to be younger, black or Hispanic, have lower incomes, and less likely to have health insurance. They were also more likely to smoke and had higher prevalence of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
At the same time, this study appears to show a stronger association between food security and life expectancy for white adults than for black adults. For example, white people with very low food security lived an average of 6.2 years less at age 50 than white people with perfect food security. For black adults, the difference was just 2.3 years.
The researchers called the findings “somewhat surprising” and argued that they may be related to poor diet quality or the small sample size of people of color included in the analysis. did.
Food security has long been considered as one of the important social factors that helps determine health outcomes. Nearly 13% of U.S. households, or 17 million households, will be food insecure by 2022, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released in October.
