WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- US life expectancy hit a new high of 77.6 years in 2003, with deaths from heart disease, cancerand stroke continuing to drop, the National Center for Health Statistics reported Thursday.

    Life expectancy in the United States has kept rising since 1990when it was 75.4 years. Life expectancy in 2003 was 74.8 years for men and 80.1 for women.

    Deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke, the three leading killers in the United States, fell to between 2 percent and 5 percent in 2003. Advances in medicine and sanitation, and declinesin smoking and other types of unhealthy behavior, have contributed to prolonging Americans' life, according to the report.

    Meanwhile, the report noticed that half of Americans in the 55-to-64 age group have hypertension, and two in five are obese. The rates of hypertension and obesity were compared with those forthe same age group around the early 1990s, at 42 percent and 31 percent respectively.

    As this age group is becoming eligible for Medicare and Social Security, the health expenditures of this group is of major concern to American taxpayers, according to the report.

    The report said the 55-to-64 age group is expected to rise from 29 million in 2004 to 40 million in 2014, because of the baby boom during the postwar period between 1946 and 1964.

    In 2003, US spending on health care rose by 7.7 percent to 1.7 trillion US dollars, which accounted for 15.3 percent of the gross domestic product, up from 14.9 percent in 2002. Enditem