Do left-handed people really die young?

[klr]

... thankfully, no, but "thereby hangs a tale" ... of poor research and statistical techniques:

There's an often-quoted statistic that right-handed people live on average nine years longer than left-handed people. As the daughter of two left-handed parents, and the sister of a left-handed brother, this, to me, is a rather worrying idea. But is there any truth in it?

The finding was advanced in two articles in the late 1980s and early 1990s by American psychologists Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren - both published in prestigious scientific journals, Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine.

But what could the explanation for the premature death of left-handers possibly be?

Something to do with the fact that tools are not designed for them?

"Knives are very awkward," says Claire Allen from Hampshire in southern England.

"They are designed for right-handers - if you use it as a left-hander it cuts on the slant all the time, whereas for a right-hander it cuts straight."

I know that my mother would be bereft without her special left-handed sewing scissors.

But surely nothing like this could be responsible for cutting life short by almost a decade?

"It's not at all plausible," says Chris McManus, professor of psychology and medical education at University College London and the author of Right Hand, Left Hand.

"If this were true it would be the largest single predictor we had of life expectancy - it would be like smoking 120 cigarettes a day plus doing another of other dangerous things simultaneously. It really is highly implausible that an epidemiologist wouldn't have spotted it previously."

If it's so implausible why was it published in respected academic journals and why has the myth endured?

...

continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23988352

[Clinton Huxley]

Heard this on the BBC More Or Less podcast

[Horwood Beer-Master]

There's an often-quoted statistic that right-handed people live on average nine years longer than left-handed people...

So often-quoted that I've literally never heard it before.

[laklak]

Only if they're good.

[klr]

There's an often-quoted statistic that right-handed people live on average nine years longer than left-handed people...

So often-quoted that I've literally never heard it before.

Neither had I TBH. It has its roots in a study that dates back to only 1988:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bra ... ft-handers

Only if they're good.

[JimC]

I want to die old and leave a particularly revolting looking corpse...

[Sean Hayden]

[SteveB]

Ambidextrous people must then live twice as long.

[cronus]

Ambidextrous people must then live twice as long.

Only half as long since they use the same hand for toilet paper as for burgers unlike left or right handed folks who have a subservient hand to deal with the toilet paper.

[SteveB]

Ambidextrous people must then live twice as long.

Only half as long since they use the same hand for toilet paper as for burgers unlike left or right handed folks who have a subservient hand to deal with the toilet paper.

You haven't heard of hand soap yet? It's wonderful.

[cronus]

Ambidextrous people must then live twice as long.

Only half as long since they use the same hand for toilet paper as for burgers unlike left or right handed folks who have a subservient hand to deal with the toilet paper.

You haven't heard of hand soap yet? It's wonderful.

I've hear'd of it but I'm in a minority.