Gina Kolata

As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, some former "Biggest Loser" contestants’ metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling back on.

Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young, white adults in the United States to levels not seen since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago — a turn of fortune that stands in sharp contrast to falling death rates for young blacks, a New York Times analysis of death certificates has found.

Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.

The average total cost of care for a person with dementia was $287,038. For a patient who died of heart disease it was $175,136. For a cancer patient it was $173,383.