Living with More than One Illness Reduces Life Expectancy in Older Adults: Study

Seniors with more than one health ailment have reduced life expectancy, according to a study.

Health conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and increased cholesterol levels are prevalent among older and younger population owing to changing lifestyles, eating habits and trends. Experts at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found high risk of early mortality in seniors diagnosed with more than one chronic health condition. They analyzed records from Medicare insurance of 1.4 million Americans aged above 67 having coverage for almost 21 serious health conditions.

Their findings revealed that a 75 year-old person without any illness might live for another additional 17.3 years but, the average life expectancy reduced by five years for those living with five chronic illnesses. Individuals aged about 70s who endured 10 or more ailments might live for just another 10 years.

Also, the respondents aged 67 with heart diseases and Alzheimer's disease were predicted to live for another 21.2 and 12 additional years, respectively. It was observed the occurrence of single disease brought down overall life expectancy by 1.8 years.  The impacts of diseases culminate over certain period of time leading to complications and massive reduction in lifespan during later years.

So far, the effects of deadly conditions like heart diseases, obesity and diabetes on health have been studied individually but, majority of seniors generally have more than one health issue.  According to the study reports, almost 60 percent of the elderly suffer from three or more health disorders.

"Living with multiple chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease and heart failure is now the norm and not the exception in the United States," said Eva H. DuGoff, study author and a recent PhD recipient at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a news release.

 "The medical advances that have allowed sick people to live longer may not be able to keep up with the growing burden of chronic disease. It is becoming very clear that preventing the development of additional chronic conditions in the elderly could be the only way to continue to improve life expectancy," she adds.

These results are essential in understanding and designing treatment methods and medications to avert death risk in older adults with multiple disabilities.

"The balancing act needed to care for all of those conditions is complicated, more organ systems become involved as do more physicians prescribing more medications. Our system is not set up to care for people with so many different illnesses. Each one adds up and makes the burden of disease greater than the sum of its parts," said F. Anderson, co-researcher and  professor in the department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

More information is available online in the journal Medical Care.