The Difference between left-and right-handed people

Right-handed people live longer than left-handed people.

California State University at San Bernardino, psychology professor Diane Halpern and University of British Columbia researcher Stanley Coren did a study to determine why fewer left-handed people are among the elderly population. The study comparing the death and accident rates of left – and right – handed people. Research was conducted last year and was reported in today’s edition of New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers studied death certificates of 987 people in two Southern California countries. Relatives were queried by mail about the subject’s dominant hands.

Left-handed women die around age 72; right –handed women die around age 78. Left-handed men die about age 62; right –handed men die about age 73.

Halpern said, “The results are striking in their magnitude.” Halpern is right-handed. She said her study should be interpreted cautiously. “It should not of course, be used to predict the life span of any one individual. It does not take into account the fitness of any individual.”
“Almost all engineering is geared to the right hand and right foot,” Halpern said. “There are many more car and other accidents among left-handed because of their environment.”

Some of Halpern’s friends are left-handed. “It’s important that mothers of left-handed children not be alarmed and not try to change witch hand a child uses,” she said. “There are many, many old left-handed people. We knew for years that there weren’t as many old left-handers,” Halpern said. “Researchers thought that was because in the early years of the century, most people born left-handed were forced to change to their right hands. So we thought we were looking at old people who used to be left-handed, but we weren’t. The truth was, there simply weren’t many left-handers left alive, compared to right-handers.”