The US opioid drug epidemic, which killed over 33,000 lives in 2015, is reducing the average life expectancy in the country, new research from the US government shows.
The skyrocketing number of opioid deaths in the US has shaved more than two months off the average American lifespan, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The CDC study found that from 2000 to 2015, the average American life expectancy grew overall from 77 years to 79 years, but that the astounding rise in opioid-related deaths shaved 2.5 months off this improvement.
The new average lifespan in 2015 would have been .21 years higher without the rising total of fatal drug overdoses, the CDC said.
While overdose deaths in general in the US more than doubled in that 15-year span, opioid overdoses more than tripled, the study reported.
No other factor negatively affected…