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4. A) Isn't it just that the population is growing older, so you'd expect more chronic diseases that people just weren't living long enough to get, before? B) Isn't it actually a more accurate assessment to say that we are all actually getting healthier and living longer, decade by decade, not sicker?

A) Well, for a start, the boom in metabolic syndrome in young people in (previously poor) countries in Asia over the last decade of two, by definition, isn't because young people are living longer. They haven't had time to do that. It's true that in the most advanced countries, we are living a little bit longer (not always in better health) and certainly, we're having fewer children, which will mean that a greater proportion of the population will be aged. This will certainly aggravate societies burden of chronic illnesses. However, with one-third of the population now diabetic to one degree or another, and over half of us suffering from eczema (and those rates doubled over a single generation, or less), it's impossible to argue that chronic illnesses are more common only because older people are more common. Far more of us are now affected than just the elderly people. Rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, etc are soaring more far quickly than society is aging, for example.

B) We are slowly, living a bit longer. Cancer survival rates are slowly increasing. Deaths from hypertension have gone down. But this reflects better treatment. The rates of diabetes, cancer and hypertension continue to increase generally, we are simply becoming a bit better, and a bit better, at keeping suffering people alive. To avoid chronic illnesses, or at a minimum, reduce the rapidly increasing rates of chronic illnesses, would obviously be a much better outcome.