Read a Book. It Might Lengthen Your Life.
Do you read? I don't mean The New York Times or The Daily News. I'm talking about books. Who has time? You might want to make it. People who read live longer.
According to The New York Times, reading books is tied to a longer life. Scientists divided people into three groups: those who read no books, those who read books up to three-and-a-half hours a week and those who read books more than that.
The study found, not surprisingly, that book readers tend to be female, college-educated and in higher income groups (maybe they have the time?). So researchers controlled for those facts, along with age, race, self-reported health, depression, employment and marital status.
Unbelievably, those in the middle group -- participants who read three-and-a-half hours a week -- were 17% less likely to die over 12 years of follow-up, and those who read more than that were 23% less likely to die.
How's those odds?
Book readers lived an average of almost two years longer than those who did not read at all.
"People who report as little as a half-hour a day of book reading had a significant survival advantage over those who did not read," The Times quotes Becca R. Levy, a professor of epidemiology at Yale.
So get cracking with those books!
According to The New York Times, reading books is tied to a longer life. Scientists divided people into three groups: those who read no books, those who read books up to three-and-a-half hours a week and those who read books more than that.
The study found, not surprisingly, that book readers tend to be female, college-educated and in higher income groups (maybe they have the time?). So researchers controlled for those facts, along with age, race, self-reported health, depression, employment and marital status.
Unbelievably, those in the middle group -- participants who read three-and-a-half hours a week -- were 17% less likely to die over 12 years of follow-up, and those who read more than that were 23% less likely to die.
How's those odds?
Book readers lived an average of almost two years longer than those who did not read at all.
"People who report as little as a half-hour a day of book reading had a significant survival advantage over those who did not read," The Times quotes Becca R. Levy, a professor of epidemiology at Yale.
So get cracking with those books!
Comments
Post a Comment