Male life expectancy 76.6, female 80.4

By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
jusie@jpost.co.il
Jerusalem Post
May 15, 2002

With Israeli men enjoying the second highest life expectancy 
in the world (an average of 76.6) and women 80.4 (but ranked 
only 10th) - has this country discovered the secret to the 
fountain of youth? 

Not really, said Prof. Manfred Green, director of the Health 
Ministry's Center for Disease Control, which keeps its eye 
on infectious and non-infectious disorders from which 
Israelis suffer - and die. 

Although there seem to be many octogenarians and even more 
than 600 centenarians (some of whom were received by President 
Moshe Katsav yesterday), "it's more the lack of certain 
conditions that cause high mortality abroad." 

For example, because of the relatively low rate of alcoholism 
here compared to Europe and the US, mortality from chronic 
liver disease is significantly lower, only 7.4 deaths in 
men and 3.3 in women per 100,000 residents, compared to 
28.4 and 11.4 respectively in Germany and 20.31 and 
8.51 in the EU as a whole. 

In addition, Green explained, deaths from trauma, accidents, 
and violence are still much rarer here than abroad. 
Israelis are also less likely to contract cancer than 
Europeans, 189 and 149 per 100,000 men and women 
respectively here, compared to 273 and 123 in France. 

The differences in life expectancy among the Western 
countries is not so great, just a couple of years, 
added Green, so the influences are hard to measure. 
Green could not say whether Jewish genes help protect 
Jewish Israelis against premature death, as "I don't 
know of statistics comparing those of Diaspora Jews 
with those of Israeli Jews. But Israeli Arabs live
considerably longer than Arabs in neighboring countries, 
primarily because of much better living conditions," 
he said.