Indians Now Have Longer Lifespan, but Live In Poor Health

Bangalore: Indians are now living much longer than 40 years ago. The life expectancy at birth of an average Indian man has increased by 15 years between 1970 and 2010, while that of an Indian woman has increased by 18 years.

It is seen that an average Indian man can expect to live for 63 years, while an Indian woman can live 4.5 years longer than her male counterpart, as reported by Kounteya Sinha for TNN. But, the number of years they stay healthy is much lesser.

An Indian male can expect to be in good health till the age of 54.6 years, and is predicted to spend the last nine years of his life suffering from different ailments. Contrastingly, an average Indian woman who is expected to live till 67.5 years will remain healthy till 57.1 years, spending 10.4 years in poor health.

It has found that even though there is reason to celebrate over an Indian's increasing lifespan, it is still much shorter than an average Chinese or an American, said the Global Burden of Disease Study, 2010.

It was noted that an average Chinese male is living 10 years longer than an Indian male, whereas a Chinese woman is living 11.5 years longer than an Indian woman. An average American lives almost 13 years longer than an Indian.

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