A study published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine reports that right handed people are outliving their left handed counterparts.
The study, conducted by Professor Diane Halpern, of California State University at San Bernardino and researcher Stanly Coren, of the University of British Columbia, focused on determining why there were fewer left-handed people than right-handed people among the older population.
The death certificates of 987 people from two Southern California counties were studied and revealed that right-handed people are outliving left-handed people by an average of nine years. Right-handed people are living to an average age of 75, while left-handed people are only living to an average age of 66.
A possible reason for this discrepancy is that left-handed people are four times more likely to die from auto related injuries and six times more likely to die from an accident in general according to the study.
“The results are striking in their magnitude,” Halpern said.
But Halpern also warns that the results of this study should be interpreted cautiously and not used to predict a person’s lifespan. The study focused on the cause of death for each subject and did not take account for the individual’s fitness level.
“It’s important that mothers of left-handed children not be alarmed and not try to change which hand a child uses,” Halpern said. “There are many, many old left-handed people.”
| Average age at Death | Right-Handed | Left-Handed |
| Male | 73 Years | 62 Years |
| Female | 78 Years | 72 Years |
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