Cole Sinanian
SET to surpass Japan as the country with world’s longest life expectancy by 2040, Spain, it seems, may hold the key to human longevity.
At 85.8 years, Spain’s life expectancy will far surpass that of other rich countries like the United States (76.3) and the United Kingdom (80.7).
Other countries expected to have life expectancies surpassing 85 years include Japan, Singapore, and Switzerland, according to the study that published the predictions.
The oldest living person, Maria Branyas Morera, is Spanish.
The 117-year-old Catalan has said she remembers both World Wars and the Spanish Civil War, and is the eighth oldest person to ever have lived.
Recent Eurostat data reveals that the Community of Madrid has Europe’s second highest life expectancy for men, at 82.2 years, behind Aland, Finland.
On the other hand, the highest life expectancies for women — who are almost universally expected to live longer than men — are all in Spain.
In Madrid, women are expected to live 88.2 years, while in Navarra it’s 87.6 and in Castilla y Leon, 87.5.
But Barcelona Autonomous University demographic researcher Elisenda Rentería Pérez cautions against hailing Madrid as an urban fountain of youth, pointing instead to its population´s tendency towards higher income brackets, which typically accompany longer lifespans.
“Madrid attracts people with a high income and education level, and that’s why their life expectancy is higher,” she told The Olive Press.
“And the same thing happens with regions of lower life expectancy, where there are worse living conditions,” she said.
Researchers often point to diet, lifestyle and genetics as the most important factors influencing longevity, and the Mediterranean diet — one high in olive oil, fruits, nuts and vegetables, and low in red meat, dairy, sugar and highly processed foods — has been long known as a key to reaching old age.
That’s largely because it’s rich in heart healthy foods known to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death globally.
One study from 2018 tracked major cardiac events in three groups of 55-80-year-olds, and found those on Mediterranean diets high in olive oil and nuts suffered fewer heart attacks and strokes than those on standard low-fat diets.
And though it’s fallen out of fashion in recent years, the Mediterranean diet still plays a significant role in Spanish culture, with Spain consistently ranking among the world’s top olive oil consumers.
While the ailments that might prevent one from reaching old age are primarily avoided through diet, genetics are most influential in producing centenarians.
“No matter how well you look after yourself throughout your life, if you don’t have that genetic makeup, then you’re not going to make it to 100,” Consuelo Borrás, a University of Valencia physiology lecturer, told The Guardian in 2018.
“But when it comes to normal longevity – living to 85 – your lifestyle is more important than your genetic makeup,” she said.
Aspects of Spain’s healthcare system may also help explain the longevity of its people.
Increased public health spending has been shown to both increase overall life expectancy, as well as years of healthy life — ie, years lived into old age without suffering from a debilitating condition or terminal illness.
A 2022 study by researchers from the Barcelona Autonomous University — which Pérez co-authored — found that public health has a significant effect on the management and prognosis of diseases in people of advanced age.
“Nowadays, public health isn’t just about interventions,” said Perez, “but also about long-term treatments for chronic diseases, treatments that often only can be afforded with the public healthcare system.”
The study linked a number of factors to length of life after 55, including unemployment, GDP, education level, public healthcare spending, and concentration of specialist doctors.
The researchers found that a spending increase of 800 euros per person on public health translated to an additional 1.5 years of life expectancy for men at age 50 and 1.2 years for women.
Despite reports of shortages, Spain’s physician density has grown since the 1990s, now at around 448 per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the sixth-highest physician-dense country in the EU.
In terms of overall healthcare expenditure, Spain’s is rather modest compared to its northern neighbours, with healthcare amounting to 10.7% of the country’s GDP, below the 10.9% EU average.
However, it’s worth noting that Spain’s per capita healthcare expenditure was the highest in all of Southern Europe, topping Italy’s at 4,290.
The people of Southern Europe, the region most commonly associated with the aforementioned Mediterranean diet, may have a greater tendency towards longer lifespans due to genetic, dietary and lifestyle factors, that, when combined with Spain’s marginal improvements in public healthcare, could help explain the superior longevity of Spanish people.
Pérez says the relationship between public healthcare and life expectancy has less to do with adding years to old age, and more to do with providing lifesaving treatments and prevention to people from lower income backgrounds and worse living conditions, which increases the population’s overall average lifespan.
“I think access to public healthcare is, without a doubt, crucial for people with lower living conditions to have better health, which improves the health of the general population,” she says.
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