[H2]We granola eaters are obviously doing something right[/H2] [DIV id=author][img height=58 alt="Headshot of Gary Mason" src="http://images.theglobeandmail.com/v5/images/headshot/garyMason68x58.jpg" width=68] [P class=byline]GARY MASON
[P class=source]From Thursday's Globe and Mail
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[DIV id=article style="FONT-SIZE: 100%"] [!-- dateline --]VANCOUVER[!-- /dateline --] — Maybe it's all the rain. Or the mountains of granola we consume. Or the daylong hikes in the fresh air.
Something is helping us live longer out here.
Each day, it seems, brings new tidings of good joy. Or at least some new study showing the health benefits of living in supernatural B.C.
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A week ago it was a report called Comparison of Life Expectancy at Birth. It compared life expectancy in B.C. with the leading countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development based on 2003 statistics.
It was presented at the B.C. Health Living Alliance conference, a gathering held to discuss ways to ensure this province is the healthiest jurisdiction ever to host an Olympic Games.
It is one of Premier Gordon Campbell's five great goals for a golden future. Or an azure horizon. Something like that.
According to statistics unearthed by John Millar, executive director of population health surveillance for the Provincial Health Services Authority, B.C. men now lead the world in male life expectancy at 78.7 years of age.
By 2010, Dr. Millar projects, B.C. men will be living 80.2 years, still No. 1 in the world and well ahead of the projected national average in Canada of 78.9.
B.C. women placed sixth in the world in terms of life expectancy among females. In 2003, women in the province were living an average of 83.1 years. B.C. women, however, trail their counterparts from Japan (who top the scale at 85.3 years), Spain, Switzerland, France and Italy.
Unfortunately, B.C.'s women are expected to drop to seventh place in the world by 2010, while living an average of 84.1 years.
Canadian Cancer Statistics released this week also contained welcome news. A new report found incidence and mortality rates of cancer are generally lower in B.C. than in the rest of the country.
The cancer incidence rate per 100,000 population in B.C. is 385.5, compared with the national average of 404. And the B.C. mortality rate from most forms of cancer is 250 per 100,000 population. The national average is 290.5.
People in Eastern Canada love to make fun of those of us who live on the West Coast. We are routinely depicted as unambitious hot-tub lovers who get high on bean sprout sandwiches, among other things. Toronto executives stare out of their Bay Street office towers late in the day, imagining their Vancouver counterparts long gone from their desks, cycling along the Stanley Park seawall or communicating with whales from the side of a kayak.
It's all true, of course. And it may be helping us live longer.
Simon Sutcliffe, president of the B.C. Cancer Agency, said British Columbians do enjoy a healthier lifestyle than those in the rest of Canada. Smoking rates in the Maritimes and Quebec, for instance, are double what they are in B.C., which has the lowest rate in the country.
Dr. Sutcliffe said yesterday we do tend to exercise more because the climate allows it. We also tend to eat more fruits and vegetables because, well, who knows, we believed our mothers when they said they were good for us.
The incidence and mortality rates for cancer in B.C. also have something to do with ethnic composition. There is a proportionally higher number of Asians in the west, especially in B.C. The distribution of cancers among Asians, especially first generation, is quite different from established Caucasian populations.
There is also another factor at play here, although Dr. Sutcliffe doesn't toot his own horn about it. Thanks to the B.C. Cancer Agency, the province has the most organized and well-developed cancer screening and treatment programs in the country. And the in-line skating, granola-crunching, hill-climbing staff who work there are helping us live longer, too.
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