Left-handed apparently not the ‘right’ way

Left-handed people may be at greater risk than their right-handed counterparts, study claims


An American who is left-handed may have a shorter life expectancy than right-handed citizens, a new study indicates. In fact, right-handed people live an average of 75 years while left-handed people live an average of only 66.

The study, conducted by Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at California State University at San Bernardino, and Stanley Coren, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, was reported in today’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The team looked at the death records of 987 people in two Southern California counties and found right-handed people were four times as likely to die from injuries while driving and as much as six times more likely to die from accidents of all kinds. Women who are right-handed tend to live six years longer than their right-handed counterparts. The difference in men is even more striking. Right-handed men live as many as 11 years longer than left-handed men.

The team wanted to investigate the fact that there are less left-handed people among the elderly. “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.”

The team suggests the reason for the difference may lie in engineering. “Almost all engineering is geared to the right hand and right foot,” Halpern said. “There are many more car and other accidents among left-handers because of their environment.”

“It’s important that mothers of left-handed children not be alarmed and not try to change which hand a child uses,” Halpern warns. “There are many, many old-left handed people.”