The suicide death rate last year was the highest it’s been in at least 50 years, according to U.S. government records. A GENERAL DECLINEFor decades, U.S. life expectancy was on the upswing, rising a few months nearly every year. Aside from that, “we’ve never really seen anything like this,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees CDC death statistics. In the nation’s 10 leading causes of death, only the cancer death rate fell in 2017. Drug overdose deaths also continued to climb, surpassing 70,000 last year, in the midst of the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history.

Source: National Post November 29, 2018 13:50 UTC