Health security

Opioid overdose deaths take 2.5 months off US life expectancy

The rise in drug-related deaths in America -- particularly from opioids like painkillers and heroin -- has taken close to three months off US life expectancy, researchers said Tuesday.

Opioids alone contributed to a loss of 2.5 months -- or 0.21 years -- in life expectancy, said the research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study, led by researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aimed to narrow down the effect of drug use on US life expectancy, which began to tick downward in 2015 for the first time since the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

Deaths from drug poisoning have more than tripled in the United States since the year 2000.