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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Gregory Health editor

Life expectancy growth stalls across Europe as England sees sharpest decline, say researchers

A doctor speaking to a patient
Researchers said that the countries that ‘best maintained’ improvements in life expectancy had fewer heart disease and cancer deaths. Photograph: Natalia Gdovskaia/Getty Images

Life expectancy improvement is stalling across Europe with England experiencing the biggest slowdown. Experts are blaming this on an alarming mix of poor diet, mass inactivity and soaring obesity.

The average annual growth in life expectancy across the continent fell from 0.23 years between 1990 and 2011 to 0.15 years between 2011 and 2019, according to research published in the Lancet Public Health journal. Of the 20 countries studied, every one apart from Norway saw life expectancy growth fall.

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