India has seen a gradual overall improvement in life expectancy at birth over recent years, reflecting advances in healthcare, nutrition, and disease management. According to the latest official data, life expectancy at birth for the period 2019–23 is estimated at 70.3 years, up from 69.8 years in 2017–21. Even the 2018–22 period reported a slight rise to 69.9 years, indicating a consistent, if incremental, upward trend.

This gain is more than a figure; it is an indicator of a nation slowly emerging from past issues of infectious diseases, child and maternal mortality, and a lack of healthcare access in rural communities. However, despite the portrait of improvement painted by the national rate, a closer examination of the data shows regional and gender variations that are worth noting.

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Are Women Outliving Men Now?

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of India's life expectancy statistics is the persistent disparity between women and men. In all three reporting periods, women not only survive longer at birth but also have a longevity advantage even at older ages.

In 2017–21, female life expectancy at birth was 71.6 years, compared to 68.2 years for men. By 2018–22, females reached 71.9 years, with males at 68.2 years. The 2019–23 data shows a more pronounced gap: females at 72.5 years, males at 68.5 years—nearly a four-year difference at birth.

Even at 70 years of age, women still have a survival advantage of over one year over men. This continuing disparity highlights biological, social, and behavioral mechanisms that are more conducive to women's survival. Women are less likely to be exposed to lifestyle risk factors like smoking and heavy drinking, and investigations also identify protective hormonal effects and more robust immune reactions as being causative.

The broadening gap also mirrors gains in the health of mothers, disease avoidance, and medical care coverage for women in India. As women keep surviving longer than men, public health efforts need to evolve in response to their needs in terms of, among others, the care of the elderly, chronic disease care, and social support networks.

Urban-Rural and State-Level Disparities

The gains in life expectancy are not even across India. Recent data underscore significant regional disparities:

Chhattisgarh has the lowest life expectancy consistently: males 62.4–62.8 years, females 66.4–67.1 years.

Delhi and Kerala continue to lead, with females achieving 78.4 years in Kerala and males 73.0 years in Delhi.

Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Kerala also show high male and female life expectancy compared to the national average.

Urban-rural differentials continue but have weakened considerably over the decades. For example:

During 2017–21, urban populations averaged 72.9 years, rural populations 68.5 years—a 4.4-year disparity.

By 2019–23, the disparity decreased slightly: urban life expectancy at 73.1 years, rural at 69.1 years, a 4-year difference.

At the age of 70, urban-rural disparities are narrower, averaging 1.5–1.9 years, an indication of increased rural healthcare and preventive services access.

Even with the decrease in the gap, rural communities still lag behind in terms of lesser access to quality care, greater infectious disease prevalence, and lesser awareness of preventive health practices. The disparities underscore the requirement for policies directed towards bridging the urban-rural divide.

Life Expectancy After Birth: Trends by Age

Life expectancy is more than a birth rate; it also reflects survival chances at various ages. The data reveal:

Life expectancy at age one (having survived infancy) has risen steadily: males from 69.5 years (2017–21) to 69.5 years (2019–23), females from 73.1 years to 73.6 years.

Life expectancy at age 60 is 18.4 years across the country (17.3 years for males, 19.6 years for females), so Indian adults can realistically hope to live well into their late 70s and early 80s if they survive to older age stages.

These age-specific trends mirror the effect of reduced infant mortality, enhanced disease control, and enhanced nutrition and sanitation. They also demonstrate women's resilience in living longer than men even at later ages, furthering the gendered character of longevity benefits.

Public Health Implications

The life expectancy trends throw up the imperative implications for India's social and healthcare planning. With women living longer than men and the population fast ageing, increasing needs of geriatric health care services, chronic diseases care, and social support systems are emerging exponentially. States like Chhattisgarh, with low performance, require special intervention to redress regional gaps in terms of maternal and child health, sanitation, and rural health infrastructure.

The female longevity edge also necessitates gender-appropriate measures that focus on preventive care, mental health interventions, and supportive care to provide a quality life for older women. Rural populations, even though they are gradually improving, continue to be prone to avoidable disease, and therefore, there is a need to consolidate healthcare access, encourage preventive testing, and spread health education in villages and small towns.

What Factors Are Driving the Improvements?

A number of factors have led to the steady increase in India's life expectancy:

Increased access to healthcare: Government initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat and state-level health programs have enhanced coverage, particularly for maternal and child health.

Vaccination: Declines in infectious diseases like measles, polio, and diphtheria have helped bring down mortality among children.

Better nutrition and sanitation: Increased dietary awareness and provision of clean water have improved health outcomes overall.

Lifestyle transitions and awareness: Better awareness of smoking cessation, physical activity, and management of chronic conditions has affected survival among adults.

Nonetheless, there are challenges. Chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease are on the increase, jeopardizing future increases in life expectancy. Managing these chronic health costs is necessary to maintain and augment longevity.

What Women's Longevity Advantage Means for The Society?

The reality that women currently live for almost four years longer than men at birth and well over one year even up to age 70 has profound implications in society:

• Healthcare systems have to be modified to provide for increasingly larger numbers of older women who might outnumber old men.
• Economic planning needs to factor in increased retirement lengths and possible dependency ratios, particularly for widows or sole living women.
• Preventive health attention must address age-related conditions for women, such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and dementia.

Women's longer life expectancy is a success indicator of general health enhancement, but it also demands gender-sensitive health planning to guarantee women not only live longer but have quality and independence in old age.

India's trends in life expectancy reveal a story of slow and steady progress, powered by expansion of healthcare, control of diseases, and social development. However, the continued existence of regional inequalities, urban-rural differentials, and gendered health disparities ensures that policy focus needs to remain laser-sharp. Strategies in the future must consist of:

• Scaling up preventive care in rural and low-performing states
• Gender-sensitive healthcare service promotion
• Intensifying chronic disease control programs
• Age-specific life expectancy trend monitoring to detect emerging health threats

By targeting these priorities, India can continue to raise life expectancy, narrow inequalities, and make sure men and women do not just live longer but also healthier and more productive lives.

The most recent Indian life expectancy figures show encouraging improvements and remaining disparities. Women still outlive men by a significant margin, a pattern that holds both in urban and rural areas, with regional gaps continuing to be a serious problem. The incremental increase in life expectancy at birth is encouraging, but the path to universal coverage, equitable, high-quality healthcare continues to be a long way off.

As India makes its way through the next decade of public health priorities, attention needs to be given to maintaining these gains, meeting the needs of older persons especially women and closing disparities that push behind rural and performing states. Only then can India unlock the full potential of longer, healthier lives for its people.

More American women are starting GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Zepbound after giving birth, according to a new study

The findings, published in JAMA, found that the sharpest increases were seen among women with diabetes, obesity or overweight.

Researchers from the University of Southern California Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics analyzed private insurance claims covering just over 1 million births over seven years.

They found that the share of new mothers starting a GLP-1 prescription within six months of childbirth rose from 0.08% in the first half of 2018 to 1.9% by the first quarter of 2025 — a 24-fold increase.

Which Women Are Driving The Rise?

Women with type 2 diabetes had the highest rate of GLP-1 prescriptions. Among them, use increased from 2.3% to 16.9% over the study period — roughly 1 in 6 women.

Prescribing also increased among women who had gestational diabetes, rising from 0.4% in mid-2021 to 2.7% in the first quarter of 2025. Gestational diabetes affects about 5% to 9% of pregnancies and substantially increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes later.

The fastest relative increase was seen among women diagnosed with obesity or overweight before pregnancy. GLP-1 use in this group rose from 0.4% in the second half of 2021 to 3.9% by the first quarter of 2025.

Since the second half of 2024, women with diagnosed obesity or overweight have accounted for 40% of new postpartum GLP-1 prescriptions.

Another 21% of women had no documented qualifying diagnosis before giving birth. However, most of these women received a diagnosis — usually obesity or overweight — before starting a GLP-1 medication.

Most Women Started GLP-1s 3 Months After Birth

Patients are advised to stop using GLP-1 medications during pregnancy. Most postpartum women in the study who started a GLP-1 did so at least three months after giving birth.

“Postpartum is a critical window for addressing metabolic risk after pregnancy, and we're seeing GLP-1 use explode in this population. Because evidence on GLP-1 exposure during breastfeeding remains limited, rising postpartum initiation warrants further study,” said lead author and Schaeffer scholar Sih-Ting Cai.

Similar Rise Seen In Denmark

A 2025 JAMA study found a similar rise in Denmark. Fewer than five GLP-1 prescriptions per 10,000 women were recorded after childbirth in 2018, rising to 173 per 10,000 by 2024 — nearly 2% of new mothers.

Can GLP-1s Raise Health Risks After Childbirth?

GLP-1s are increasingly used for postpartum weight loss, but their safety after childbirth remains poorly studied. According to researchers, little is known about how these drugs affect normal postpartum hormonal changes or maternal recovery.

They also noted that evidence on GLP-1 exposure during breastfeeding remains limited, highlighting the need for further research as postpartum use increases.

“We simply do not know how weight-loss medication interacts with those processes or whether it could affect normal physiological recovery,” Dr. Jonathan Zipursky, a clinical pharmacologist and toxicologist at the University of Toronto, told The New York Times in 2025.

Evidence on GLP-1s during breastfeeding is also limited. A 2024 CMAJ paper suggested low breast-milk exposure, but researchers stressed that infant safety data remain insufficient. Zipursky recommended avoiding GLP-1s while breastfeeding as a precaution.

A new experimental obesity drug could offer an alternative to GLP-1 medicines for people who struggle with their gastrointestinal side effects.

Petrelintide, a once-weekly injectable drug that works on the hormone amylin, helped people with obesity lose more than 10% of their body weight in a Phase 2 trial.

Published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, the drug showed a relatively low rate of gastrointestinal side effects.

The study, however, did not directly compare petrelintide with drugs like semaglutide or tirzepatide.

So, while the results suggest it may be better tolerated, researchers cannot yet say that it causes fewer side effects than GLP-1 drugs.

Petrelintide Works Differently From Ozempic And Mounjaro

Petrelintide is a long-acting amylin analogue. Amylin is a hormone produced by the pancreas alongside insulin and helps control appetite and food intake.

A yet-to-be approved drug, unlike Ozempic and Wegovy, which target the GLP-1 hormone, petrelintide focuses on amylin.

It is being developed by Danish drugmaker Zealand Pharma with Roche.

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Petrelintide’s Effect On Weight Loss

The Phase 2 ZUPREME-1 trial included 485 people who received at least one dose of petrelintide or placebo, with everyone also receiving lifestyle advice.

After 42 weeks, average weight loss ranged from 8.7% to 10.7%, depending on the petrelintide dose.

The group receiving placebo lost about 1.7% of their body weight. The 5 mg dose produced the largest average reduction, at 10.7%.

At 28 weeks, weight loss across the petrelintide groups ranged from about 7.9% to 9.8%, compared with 1.7% with placebo.

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Petrelintide Shows Promise In Terms Of Tolerability

This is perhaps one of the biggest attractions of petrelintide. Nausea was the most common side effect, affecting 20% of people compared to 6% in the placebo group.

However, vomiting was uncommon, occurring in 3% of the petrelintide group compared with 6% of the placebo group. Diarrhoea occurred in 7% and constipation in 7% of those receiving petrelintide. Researchers also reported that most gastrointestinal side effects were mild.

This is a well-tolerated medication," lead investigator Dr. Timothy Garvey of the University of Alabama at Birmingham told HCPLive . Approved GLP-1 drugs have produced larger average weight loss in their own trials, but Garvey said "This current level of 10-15% is sufficient to treat a large number of patients who have obesity.

Three serious adverse events were considered related to petrelintide, including two cases of gallstones and one case of obstructive pancreatitis, according to an independent expert assessment of the study.

Petrelintide Vs Ozempic

One may be inclined to compare petrelintide's side-effects with that of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound and Mounjaro, but the trial was designed to compare petrelintide with placebo, not with semaglutide or tirzepatide.

Dr Marie Spreckley of the University of Cambridge cautioned that the comparison with GLP-1 medicines is too strong because “the trial did not test petrelintide against any of those medicines, so we cannot say from these results that it causes fewer side effects.”

That means more investigation will be needed to compare petrelintide’s tolerability and existing obesity treatments.

However, the results have prompted further development of petrelintide, with Phase 3 trials planned. Researchers are particularly interested in whether the drug can provide sustained weight loss while allowing people to remain on treatment without gastrointestinal symptoms.

Repeated viral infections may play a key role in shaping Parkinson’s disease risk. A new study by researchers at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, has found that RNA viruses like influenza and even SARS-CoV-2 can interact with a protein called alpha-synuclein, accelerating the formation of abnormal protein clumps associated with Parkinson’s.

Published in Cell Reports, the study, which was led by Dr Swasti Raychaudhuri’s laboratory at CCMB, also identified a cellular protein that appears to act as a defense against this process.

What Is Alpha-Synuclein?

Alpha-synuclein is a protein that is naturally found in nerve cells. In Parkinson’s disease, the protein can accumulate into abnormal clumps called amyloid aggregates.

These aggregates are a characteristic feature of Parkinson’s and can interfere with the normal functioning of neurons.

The new study looked at what happens to alpha-synuclein when a cell is infected by an RNA virus.

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How Could Flu And COVID Affect Alpha-Synuclein?

Flu and COVID viruses contain RNA, which is their genetic material. The researchers found that parts of this viral RNA can fold into unusual shapes called RNA G-quadruplexes (rG4s).

These RNA structures can interact with a protein called alpha-synuclein. Alpha-synuclein normally exists in brain cells, but in Parkinson’s disease it can clump together and form abnormal deposits.

The researchers found that viral RNA structures may encourage alpha-synuclein to clump together more easily.

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Body Has Its Own Defense Mechanism

The researchers also identified a protein called DDX39A, which counters both viral multiplication and alpha-synuclein aggregation.

Normally found inside the cell nucleus, DDX39A moves into the cytoplasm during an RNA viral infection. There, it can interact with both viral RNA structures and alpha-synuclein.

DDX39A acts as an RNA “unwinding” protein. It breaks apart the rG4 structures in viral RNA, making it harder for the virus to replicate. At the same time, this process appears to slow the formation of alpha-synuclein amyloids.

Study first author Aanchal said, “The virus fails to replicate with its RNA structures dismantled, and thus, the viral load in the cells decreases. At the same time, the unwinding of viral RNA’s secondary structure effectively slows down α-Synuclein amyloid formation.”

Viral Infections Do Not Cause Parkinson’s: Researchers

The researchers caution against making that conclusion. Not every viral infection will increase amyloid formation, and not everyone who gets influenza or COVID-19 will develop Parkinson’s.

The study suggests that the outcome depends on a complex balance between the virus, viral RNA, alpha-synuclein, and the cell’s defence mechanisms.

There have been previous studies reporting an association between certain viral infections and an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases. But the biological mechanism behind such associations has remained unclear.

The CCMB researchers are now investigating what happens to these molecular interactions over longer periods.

The concern is that repeated exposure to viral infections could alter the balance between protective cellular mechanisms and protein aggregation. However, this remains an area of investigation and cannot currently be used to predict an individual's Parkinson’s risk.