Health Highlights: Dec. 8, 2009

Dec. 9 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

U.S. Spending on Health Care Doesn't Show in Life Expectancy

Even though it spends the most on health care, the United States has one of the lowest life expectancies of industrialized nations, says a report released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In 2007, individual and government spending on health care in the United States was $7,290 per person, nearly 2.5 times the OECD average of $2,984, the Associated Press reported.

But life expectancy in the United States was 78.1 years, a year less than the OECD average of 79.1 years. The United States ranks just ahead of the Czech Republic, Poland and Mexico, which spend much less on health care.

Health care spending in the United States rose an average of 3.4 percent per year between 1997 and 2007, which was below the OECD average of 4.1 percent, the AP reported.

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Current Decade Warmest on Record

This decade has been the warmest since global surface temperatures started being recorded in the mid-1800s, according to figures released Tuesday at the climate change talks in Copenhagen.

"Despite 1998 being the warmest individual year, the last 10 years have clearly been the warmest period in the 160-year record of global surface temperature maintained jointly by the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia," said a news release issued by the United Kingdom's National Weather Service, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

"These figures highlight that the world continues to see global temperature rise -- most of which is due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and clearly shows that the argument that global warming has stopped is flawed," the Met Office said.