Article: If everything is killing us, why do we live so long?

Found this gem of an article this morning and couldn't resist posting it.

If everything is killing us, why do we live so long?

Here's a snippet from the article:

Is it me, or are we becoming two nations, a society where what occurs in one half of the country bears no relation to events in the other?

I'm talking not about the divide identified by Disraeli - that between rich and poor. Nor do I mean the gap between north and south, or even black and white. No, the contrast to which I refer is starker than that.

It's the split between Negative Britain, in which we appear to be under relentless attack from an increasing list of death-inducing ailments and Positive Britain, where life expectancy is rising at such a rapid rate that the pension system is on the brink of collapse.

Flick through the daily papers' news pages and it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that everything is killing us. But then turn to the personal finance sections and it seems that our pension funds are skint because nobody is dying.

How can this be? Are we dropping like flies or living for ever? Such questions nag away at me, after I spotted a feature in yesterday's Financial Times under the headline "Dangers of a good night's sleep".

Jeepers! Now even having a kip is a cause for concern.

Every day, it seems, new warnings of a looming health disaster emerge in Negative Britain. The scale of imperilment is truly spectacular.