An intriguing way of quantifying these is to ask what the gain in life expectancy would be if each of these specific causes was eliminated. A sampling of these is shown in Table 4 taken from data analyzed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). You can see, for instance, that if all heart and cardiovascular disease were cured, life expectancy at birth would increase by only about six years. Perhaps more surprising is to learn that if all cancer were cured, life expectancy at birth would increase by only about three years—and, at age sixty-five,
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