As has been revealed by the UN in an official report, global life expectancy has managed to increase very sharply from 47 years in 1950-55 to 68 years for the period of 2005-2010.

Put forward by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the report revealed that people are now living longer mostly because there have been marked improvement in nutrition and hygiene. In addition, there have been advances in vaccines and medical treatments which effectively fight against diseases which are infectious and parasitic and are essentially "communicable".

With the fall in mortality more marked at younger ages, fatalities have managed to become concentrated at older agers when people are more at risk of developing "non-communicable" life-long and degenerative diseases like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular problems, as has been shared by the report.

Worldwide, the report showed, the proportion of deaths at the age of 60 or above has managed to rise for 26% in the period from 1950 to 1955 to 54% in 2005-2010.

The complete report will now be discussed next week at an upcoming meeting of the UN Commission on Population and Development.