While global life expectancy has stalled since 2010 due to the pandemic, increased resistance to antibiotics and rising levels of obesity, promising technologies for future medical advancement are providing reasons for optimism that people can live longer, healthier lives.
This is according to Paul Murray, CEO life and health reinsurance at Swiss Re (pictured), who was speaking at Swiss Re’s presentation of the new sigma publication: the global economic and insurance market outlook 2025/26 yesterday.
Murray explained that while life expectancy among global populations roughly doubled in the 20th century amid increased adoption of antibiotics, these gains have slowed since 2010, with cardiovascular improvements particularly affected and the pandemic taking a toll on mortality rates in both the US and the UK.
But he added advancements in obesity drugs, immunotherapy and MRNA (molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccines give reasons for optimism that global populations can live not just longer but healthier lives.
Slowdown in life expectancy gains
“During the 20th century you could very roughly say that life expectancy doubled,” Murray said. “And that is incredible. That is a social, demographic complete transformation.
“We have become used to this – of living longer and dealing with the problems of it.
“But since 2010 life expectancy improvements have slowed down.”
Murray warned that the factors that have driven mortality improvements in the past are probably not the those that are going to drive mortality improvements in the future.
Cardiovascular improvement slows
Murray added cardiovascular disease improvements have slowed down “significantly”.
“So maybe we’ve optimised cardiovascualar medicine maybe,” he continued.
“We can see some potential improvements, but it’s certainly slower.”
Long shadow of Covid
One nation where there is a significant divide when it comes to life expectancy is the US where only the top 10% socio economic group has a high life expectancy comparable with developed economy standards.
And Murray explained key issues affecting mortality in the US were access to healthcare, opioids and the continued influence of the pandemic.
“Of course Covid-19 continues to be a challenge,” he continued.
“We’ve had a dramatic few years, but this is still with us.
“In the US excess mortality is running at about 25% of what it was at the peak of Covid. At the peak of Covid we had 23% excess mortality in the US and 11% in the UK.
“So both the US and the UK are still suffering from elevated mortality driven by Covid.
“There’s a long shadow of Covid that we’re dealing with and the question is what is the outlook for the future?
“From where we stand today it’s hard to be definitive. We work on some scenarios where we talk about adverse scenarios and more optimistic scenarios.
“But to get to the optimistic scenarios we need very good healthcare, very good medical developments, and we need to continue with vaccine strategy – particularly for the old and the vulnerable.”
Antimicrobial resistance
A further factor affecting life expectancy and linked to the pandemic, is increased resistance to antibiotics among global populations, Murray noted.
“Will Louis Pasteur’s great invention of antibiotics still work in the future? That doubling of life expectancy in the 20th century was mainly because of that,” Murray maintained.
“That’s maybe at risk if antibiotics are less effective going forward.”
And Murray added there are some “stunning” statistics at play here.
“In 2021 there was just over 1.1 million global deaths directly attributable to AMR [antimicrobial resistance], with 4.7 million in some way influenced by AMR.
“Actually during the pandemic we made the problem worse and this often happens when you’re trying to optimise one variable, you take your eye off another one.
“During the pandemic the World Health Organization reported that only 8% of patients had bacterial coinfections but 75% were treated by antibiotics and this is what causes AMR.
“We’re calling out for increased awareness, working with government and transnational bodies to try and find mechanisms that we can build to deal with us. But cooperation is absolutely required.”
Gamechanger drug
On a more positive note, Murray revealed diabetes drugs like GLP-1 drugs are proving a gamechanger in the US’s fight against obesity.
“We saw very recently for the first time statistics showing that obesity is falling in the US having been on a dramatic upward curve,” Murray continued.
“Could this be GLP-1 drugs? Yes, there is a good chance it is. Of course less obesity should be good for life expectancy, but it remains to be seen whether these drugs have a purely neutral and benevolent effect on health.
“We have tried to do a piece of work to say which aspects of health will most likely lead to a positive outcome. It’s not everything, but our core message is while it looks good, we need to monitor it, watch it and make sure the data emerges over time that hopefully delivers a positive outcome and a positive game changer.”
Reasons to be optimistic
And Murray revealed that there are other reasons to be optimistic when looking to the future.
“There are promising technologies for future medical advancement in the future,” he said.
“This study we did shows you the size of the bubble and tells you which ones we think will be the most meaningful contributors.
“So you can see in the short to medium term obesity drugs, immunotherapy and MRNA vaccines which made incredible breakthroughs in the the pandemic, we see a very optimistic outlook for that technology to be applied broadly.
“And in the longer term we hope that all the great experiments that are underway in the Alzheimer’s space will have an impact over time.
“And of course with an ageing society, this is the big win that we have to get to where hopefully we get longer, healthier lives to not longer unhealthier lives for the population.”