Women have shortest lifespans in Europe
Experts warned that binge-drinking and smoking â€" epitomised by Joanna Lumley’s Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous - are sending British women to an early grave
British women have shorter lifespans than almost anywhere else in Western Europe, shock new figures reveal.
Female life expectancy in the UK is three years less than in Spain and worse than in poorer countries such as Slovenia and recession-hit Greece, according to a report from Public Health England. Only Denmark has a worse record.
Last night, experts warned that binge-drinking and smoking â€" epitomised by Joanna Lumley’s Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous â€" along with overeating, meant many British women were consigning themselves to an early grave.
The lifespan of the average British woman is 82 years and nine months, the statistics show, compared with 85 y ears and nine months in Spain. By contrast, British men are mid-table in the EU league with a life expectancy of 79 years and two months â€" comfortably above the average.
British women are dying prematurely from a range of killers including cancer, chronic respiratory disease and dementia. Cirrhosis of the liver is also above average here, according to PHE report.Â
Last night Professor Peter Goldblatt, of University College London’s Institute for Health Equity, said older British women suffered relatively poor health because they were liberated from domestic life earlier, which meant they adopted the traditionally male pursuit of smoking sooner.
He said: ‘Women in this country started smoking in large numbers during the Second World War, when they began to work in factories. So the epidemic of smoking among women happened earlier [in Britain] than among women in other European co untries.’
Professor Peter Goldblatt, of University College London’s Institute for Health Equity, said smoking during the Second World War was a contributing factor (file photo)
As this generation aged, rates of lung cancer and respiratory diseases in women soared, he said. All this dragged down today’s life expectancy predictions, which are based on current mortality rates.
Lung cancer in UK women is still rising: rates have increased 18 per cent in the last decade and the disease now claims 16,300 lives a year â€" more than breast and ovarian cancer combined. Studies consistently show UK survival rates for these cancers are poorer than in similar European countries.
Meanwhile, heavy drinking is growing as a threat to women’s health, said Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, of the Alcohol Health Alliance. While ‘baby boomer’ women tended to smoke less than their mothers, they drank much more.
Meanwhile, heavy drinking is growing as a threat to women’s health, said Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, of the Alcohol Health Alliance (file photo)
‘Drinking about a bottle of wine a week will increase a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer by about 10 per cent,’ he warned. ‘But awareness of the general link between alcohol and common cancers is very poorly understood.’
Prolonged heavy drinking was also linked to dementia and other cognitive problems, he said, suggesting alcohol could be responsible for more deaths than officially recorded.
Prof Goldblatt said early detection of cancer ‘still lags behind Europe’, affecting survival rates, while NHS and social care funding was ‘not keeping pace’ with increases in dementia.
The Department of Health said: ‘Life expectancy continues to increase, wit h cancer survival rates at a record high, while smoking rates are at an all-time low.'
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