Basic News Story

Left vs. Right

New studies show that being left-handed shortens the lifespan of an individual.


If you are left hand dominant, automatically your life expectancy has decreased.

Left-handed people are ten percent of the population, but these people represent much fewer among the elderly population.

According to a recent study, left-handed people were four times more likely to die from injuries while driving than right-handers. This is compared to six times more likely for left-handers to die from all types of accidents than right-handers.

Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at California State University at San Bernardino, who conducted part of the study, said “We knew for years that there weren’t as many old left-handers,”

Halpern further elaborates on the early conceptions of the research saying “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 that there simply weren’t many left-handers left alive, compared to right-handers.”

Another contributor of this research is Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia. Along with Halpern, these researchers studied death certificates of 987 people in two Southern California counties. The relatives of these people were questioned by mail about the subject’s dominant hands.

Further research showed that the average age at death for right-handed people was 75. This number was much lower for left-handed people being at 66.

Halpern although warns people to take caution with this data. “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” she said.

She goes on further to say that there are plenty old left-handed people. If history is any indication these numbers should not sway parents to change their children’s dominant hand.

So why does the world seem harder for left-handed people to live in? Halpern offers an explanation. “Almost all engineering is geared to the right hand and right foot,” she said. “There are many more car and other accidents among left-handers because of their environment.”