Spain will soon overtake Japan in life expectancy rankings
I see lots of exotic hypothesis being tossed around, but none of them fit Singapore, which is only slightly behind Spain/Japan. The Singaporean lifestyle is one of the most stressful, competitive and insecure in the world. The cuisine isn't particularly healthy... any more so than the cuisine you would find at most Chinese/Thai/Fast-Food places.My armchair hypothesis is that the quality and availability of medical care trumps most other factors. Singapore is known to have a great medical system, even for those not well off.This is probably also the reason USA is doing so badly. If you're in the bottom quintile, the quality and availability of medical care is awful. If we ever instituted medicare-for-all, I expect average lifespan would shoot up by a couple years at least.