Americans Take Fewer Steps, More Drugs

The October issue of the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise offers up an interesting comparison of the number of steps taken daily by Americans, and by people who don't live in America, and therefore still use their legs to move from one place to another. The New York Times, which kindly translates the piece to English, reports that Americans, on average, take 5,117 steps a day, far short of the averages in western Australia (9,695 steps), Switzerland (9,650 steps) and Japan (7,168 steps). Elsewhere, the Times reports on one thing whose health is improving: the pharmarceutical industry. According to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Americans spent more than $234 billion on prescription drugs in 2008, up from $104.6 billion in 1999. Among people older than 60, the researchers found, about 88 percent were using at least one medicine, and more than two-thirds were taking five or more.