Life expectancy in the United States fell for the second year in a row for the first time in more than half a century, and is believed to be caused by the worsening opiate problem.
Opioid-based substances or analgesics are used to relieve acute pain.
Life expectancy in 2016 fell by 0.1 years to 78.6, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
This is the first decline in the average age since 1962- 1963. The last such decline occurred in 1920.
The United States also experienced a decline in average age by one year in 1993, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Years of over-prescribing opioid analgesics in the United States have led to an addiction crisis at the national level, with some patients turning to heroin and other narcotic drugs when their medical prescription stops.
"The main factor in all this is the increase in deaths from overdose of drugs," said Robert Anderson, head of death statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics.
25 million people die every year for lack of morphine
Analgesics have to do with reducing the risk of skin cancer
Anderson described the continued decline for the second year as "shocking."
In 2016, 63600 people died of overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), up 21 percent from the previous year, three times higher than in 1999.
Deaths due to overdose of opiates increased by 28 percent, killing 42,249 people, mostly in the 25 to 54 age group.
Lower life expectancy again in 2017 would be the first decline in three years since the Spanish flu pandemic 100 years ago.
Excessive overdose is attributable to the invasion of synthetic opiates such as fentanyl, the American market, which is 100 times stronger than heroin.
Many users bought heroin mixed with fentanyl without knowing it.
Deaths caused by overdose of synthetic opiates jumped to 19410 in 2016 from 9850 in 2015 and 5540 in 2014, according to the report.
Death rates from seven out of 10 major causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, decreased the number of deaths due to overdoses.
"If deaths do not decrease for other reasons, it would get worse," Anderson said.
The 2016 mortality rate rose by 9.7 percent due to unintentional injuries, 3.1 percent for Alzheimer's disease - partly due to aging populations - and 1.5 percent for suicide.
In a separate report, the Center for Disease Control linked the 133 percent increase in cases of hepatitis C between 2004 and 2014 to an increase in the number of users taking opioid analgesics.
In October, US President Donald Trump described the worsening abuse of opiates as a public emergency, but he did not declare it a national emergency, helping to channel more federal funds to fight the crisis.
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Great article dude. I think that the opiate epidemic is a lot deeper than most people think it is. Opiate use is NOT caused by over-prescription of medication. It's caused by lack of proper education on these substances. government-implemented programs like DARE try to teach our very own children using highly restrictive, biased opinions based on false steryotypes, misinterpreted information, and poorly conducted studies. When people realize the true safety profile of "light" drugs like cannabis, many simply believe that all drugs carry a similar safety profile, and use harder drugs without researching the proper information, and become addicted. Most addicts are also going through oppresive stages of their lives that led them down their path, and instead of purely focusing on teaching these people how bad the only thing in life that makes them feel good is, we should be focusing on healthy ways to live life and be happy at the same time. Opiates are one of the most beneficial, powerful, and harmful medications in society, and they aren't going away anytime soon. If society doesn't change the way we view drug education and substance use, it's only going to get worse.
Thank you buddy and i totally agree with you about government-implemented programs like DARE try to teach our very own children using highly restrictive, but sometimes even though we can teach our children these stuff, the entourage where people live and grow up, absolutely affect so bad on those people's lives.