2024-07-26 04:00:00
Human activities that cause environmental degradation also have a significant impact on our health. In the next thirty years, global warming is likely to become one of the greatest threats to human health. Which activities are most harmful to health and the environment? Are the goals of combating global warming and improving health compatible or contradictory?
Dr. Jean-David Zeitoun provides the answers in this episode of the “Chaleur humaine” podcast, aired on June 6, 2023 lemonade.fr. You can find all episodes of this podcast here and subscribe to the Chaleur humaine newsletter here .
In your book “The Suicide of the Species,” you explain that around the world, medicine is advancing but health is declining. for what?
Medicine will always advance because it is the subject of continued investment—because we all want to live better, longer lives. Health depends on other determinants beyond medicine, especially our biology, but also environmental and behavioral determinants. This is where everything gets complicated. Data shows that overall health has been stagnant or declining in recent years.
For example, it is a paradox that life expectancy has stagnated or even declined in many countries—especially wealthy ones. The most exemplary country, in a bad sense, is the United States – and this was even before the Covid-19 pandemic. In this country, life expectancy peaked in 2014, fell for three consecutive years, then stagnated and then fell due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the United States is not the only country concerned. It is simply a country with more concentrated problems.
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Until then, life expectancy had been increasing in Western countries. Are we at a turning point?
this is possible. The progress observed almost constantly since the mid-eighteenth century is no longer so evident. In the West, and in other parts of the world since the mid-20th century, life expectancy has been increasing at a fairly steady rate of two to three months per year. This is no longer the case. We could use other indicators, such as infant mortality or cardiovascular mortality, which are rising in many countries, including France.
Of the risks you identified, one of the main ones is pollution, which kills 9 million people around the world every year. What type of pollution are we talking about?
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