The life expectancy in the United States has dipped a little from years 2007 to 2008. This was according to a new federal report.

In general, the life expectancy for the Americans has slowly fall for about a month. Previously, the life expectancy rate of Americans is at 77.9, now it goes down to 77.8. The Average life expectancy for women dropped as well by a tenth of one year to 80.3 years. Men also have the same conditions, with 75.3 years as life expectancy.

After 50 years of being the third leading causes of death, stroke was finally overshadowed by chronic a lower respiratory disease which includes asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. The death rates for stroke had a 3.8 percent dropped based on the reports released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.For whites, the life expectancy fell, deducting .2 years of the normal life expectancy. On the other hand, black women did not see any changes with their life expectancy, with 76.8 years since 2008. Black men, on the other hand, saw a record high of 70.2 years, though this is still 8 years behind average white men. This difference seen between the life expectancy of white and black shows 4.6 years difference in 2008, dropping for 0.2 years from 2007.

Still, heart disease and cancer account for the most number of deaths in the United States, causing 48 percent of the deaths in 2008. The noticeable rise of death rates in 2008 was mainly because of Alzheimer’s disease (up to 7.5 percent), influenza and pneumonia (up 4.9 percent), hypertension, or high blood pressure (up 4.1 percent), suicide (up 2.7 percent), and kidney disease (up 2.1 percent).

Looking at the positive, the infant mortality fell to its all-time low since 2008, with a decline of 6.59 deaths among infants, based on 1,000 live births in 2008 from 6.57 in 2007.

According to O’Neill, the life expectancy could possibly note a start of a new trend at it is surely an alarming issue. O’Neill said that this is the first time in the last 25 years that a decline happened. Furthermore, he said that the life expectancy during the 1960s up to 2000 was outstanding. He said that it has something to do with less smoking and better control of blood pressure, as well as some advancements in heart disease management.

Now it seems that obesity has affected the life expectancy in the U.S. With its growing number of cases, obesity leads to diabetes, and later on leads to heart diseases, increasing the occurrence of death.