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Do you take your time when there's a project due?  Are you the last to any meeting?  Do you wait until your friends choose a place for lunch, then go along if you like it? Are you a slacker ? Watch out, says a new study, according to newswise.com.  Feeling less active than your peers is associated with an earlier death, the study says. People who think they’re less active than others their age have a greater chance of dying younger than people who perceive themselves as more active, even if their actual activity levels are the same, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.  People who believed they weren’t as active as their peers were 71 percent more likely to die during the study’s follow-up period than were people who believed they had a more active lifestyle, the study said. This result remained even after controlling for actual amounts of activity, chronic illnesses, age and other demographic and health factors....

Now this is weird. Do thoughts of death change our shopping habits? According to a new study, yes, they do.  Newswise.com reports that it's not really what you think, but just that, in this time of holiday merriment, it's easy to become really depressed about reports of plane crashes, terrorist attacks, fatal car accidents and deadly fires, which may lead shoppers to think more about their own mortality than buying that new iPhone for your kid. Now new research from the John Molson School of Business (JMSB) and HEC Montréal shows that, for people with certain world views, thoughts of death don't cause us to curl up in our homes and not venture out.  They can actually trigger the buying impulse. While the habits of spendthrifts don't change after contemplating their own mortality, compulsive shoppers, on the other hand, go out and buy more. "Previous research shows that thoughts of death lead individuals to strongly defend world views that maintain ...

So we live longe r, but less healthier than men.  And now a new study says women's long work hours are linked to alarming increases in cancer and heart disease, according to newswise.com. And it's not just the workaholics who toil for 60 or 70 hours a week.  It's those of us who work 40 hours, as well. Women who put in long hours for the bulk of their careers may pay a steep price: life-threatening illnesses, including heart disease and cancer. Work weeks that averaged 60 hours or more over three decades appear to triple the risk of diabetes, cancer, heart trouble and arthritis for women, according to new research from The Ohio State University. The risk begins to climb when women put in more than 40 hours and takes a decidedly bad turn above 50 hours, researchers found. Women – especially women who have to juggle multiple roles – feel the effects of intensive work experiences and that can set the table for a variety of illnesses and disability,” says All...

It's probably something you've always wondered.  Why do women live longer than men? Maybe not. And the answer is, no one knows!  When I was a kid, it was thought because most women didn't work (outside the home, that is!). They stayed home and baked brownies and took the kids to the park and the playground and looked pretty and fetching when Dad came home.  Well, some moms did.  (Not mine.) But a new study says that women do live longer than men, and their bonus lifespan is the same in mammals and some birds and primates and just about any living (human) thing walking around on the earth. "Humans are the only species in which one sex is known to have a ubiquitous survival advantage,” the UAB researchers write in their research review covering a multitude of species, according to newswise.com. “Indeed, the sex difference in longevity may be one of the most robust features of human biology.” Though other species, from roundworms and fruit flies to a spectr...

I'm going back to church. People who do this live longer. At least that's what a new study has found, according to The New York Times.  Researchers used data from a long-term study of 75,534 women that tracked their health and lifestyle, including their attendance at religious services, over 16 years through 2012.  After controlling for more than two dozen factors, they found that compared with those who never went to church, going more than once a week was associated with a 33 percent lower risk for death from any cause, attending once a week with a 26 percent lower risk, and going less than once a week a 13 percent lowered risk. Risks for mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer followed a similar pattern. The researchers statistically eliminated the possibility of reverse causation — that is, that healthy people go to church more than unhealthy ones. And they found that some variables, such as social support and a tendency not to smoke...

I've always shied away from those Internet quizzes that make you answer questions to determine how old you are, not chronologically but healthwise.  Some of my half-century friends get in the 30s but I still stay away. Now how would you like to know when you'll die?  I can't imagine anything more gruesome! I've always lived my life based on serendipity -- you know, the things you never expect to happen but do, like meeting my husband after talking to a woman on a boat in the Bahamas who happened to live near me and going out on singles' weekends with her, then up to the Catskills to meet a husband for her, only I met mine. Those kinds of things. But a new study purports that a computer can tell you how old you will be when you die. I'd kind of like it to be a surprise. Maybe because I've fought cancer twice, death doesn't scare me so much (okay, maybe it's that I've been cancer-free for almost 10 years that does it).  But statisticia...

I can so relate to this. A new study says that many of us baby boomers may not be able to retire at 65 and maintain our style of living because we're afraid to think about dying . Say what? Yup.  Roughly 52 percent of American households will not have enough retirement income to maintain their standard of living if they retire at 65.The reason? People are afraid of thinking about their own death, according to newswise.com.   Fear of death tempts people to avoid making decisions about how to manage their savings during retirement. Researchers from Boston College in Massachusetts decided to investigate why so few people choose to invest in annuities, a guaranteed steady stream of income during retirement. The public's lack of interest in annuities, known as the "annuity puzzle," has stumped researchers for decades. The investigators explored a new solution to the annuity puzzle: What if people avoid this option because it evokes thoughts about mortali...

Now this is going to make a lot of people really unhappy (unless you're over 50). But a new study has found that the benefits of red wine as they pertain to a longer life have been severely overstated, according to yahoo.com/health. Researchers analyzed data on the drinking habits of over 52,000 adults who were interviewed about their average weekly alcohol consumption, as well as how much they drank in one day. They found “little to no” health benefits of drinking alcohol, regardless of how much or little someone drank.  Any protective benefits of alcohol seemed limited to men between ages 50 and 64, and women age 65 and over. But don't despair!  Former drinkers — some of whom were once heavy drinkers — were lumped in with people who had never been drinkers and labeled as “non-drinkers,” which could affect the results.  “There’s still much more work to be done on isolating the true effect of alcohol consumption on health,” study researcher Craig Kno...

I don't know whether to be delighted -- scared-- but supposedly your friends know how long you'll  live.  That's according to a new study by Washington University in St. Louis.  Apparently, close friends  may have a better sense of whether you'll live a long life, suggests new research on personality and longevity. “You expect your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave,” says Joshua Jackson, PhD, assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, at newswise.com. The study demonstrates that your personality at an early age (20s) can predict how long you will live across 75 years and that close friends are usually better than you at recognizing these traits. Male participants seen by their friends as more open and conscientious ended up living longer. Female participants whose friends rated them as high on emotional stability and ...

My husband is not going to be happy about this, this man who every day eats apples, cherries, blueberries, spinach, and red peppers.   A new study finds that five servings of fruits and vegetables a day is still not enough. Say what?  According to the Los Angeles Times, we really should be eating seven. Eating five a day was supposed to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity and Type 2 diabetes.  Scientists from the University College London who looked at data concerning fruit and vegetable consumption and mortality from a 12-year period for more than 65,000 people over the age of 35  found that participants "ate on average 3.8 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, with a serving being three ounces. Those who ate more fruit and vegetables were found to have a lower body-mass index," Jenn Harris reports.  I'm not that good either.  I try to have two vegetables at dinner and eat fruit throughout the day, but I certainly don't, al...

I blog I visit a lot recently asked a very interesting question.  How risky is it to be uninsured ? I particularly want to know because my husband, 64 but healthy, does not have health insurance, and never has.  (Of course, he also never goes to the doctor.) But Chris Conover at forbes.com, who poses that question, says a couple of things.  Some studies show you have an elevated risk of dying without insurance.  Try about 25% more.  But others, sifting similar data, find the risk statistically insignificant. Why?  People who smoke and/or are obese are more likely to be uninsured, sure risks for an early death. It's possible they're more comfortable taking risks and might speed or not wear seat belts, too.  Young people, who also often do not buy insurance (they'll live forever, remember?), have as one of their greatest causes of death, automobile accidents, Conover points out.  So, are they dying young from being hospitalized without insuran...

Good news. We're all living longer.  Except for obese teens , it turns out. According to newswise.com, " Although people live longer today than they did 50 years ago, people who were overweight and obese as teenagers aren’t experiencing the same gains as other segments of the population." The life expectancy of the average American born in 2011 was 78.7 years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up from about 50 at the turn of the last century. The average lifespan has increased by more than a decade since 1950, but rising obesity rates threaten to take a toll on this progress. “In studying the rate of death among adults younger than age 50, we found that there was no improvement among men who were overweight or obese as teenagers,” newswise quotes one of the study’s authors, Amir Tirosh, MD, PhD, of the Division of Endocrinology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. “In fact, the mortality rate among overweight and obese t...

It turns out that childhood obesity leads to a lot more than just fat adults.  A study has now found that  even in cases in which obese children later lose weight, the health effects of childhood obesity may be long-lasting and profound, according to newswise.com. "The earlier you are exposed to obesity, the earlier we may see the onset of complications including type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome and cancer. That makes sense: these complications don’t happen overnight, and the earlier you start the ball rolling, the earlier and more likely you are to see early morbidity and mortality from them," the Web site reports. But there's more. Kids’ maturing bodies may be especially vulnerable to the detrimental health effects of obesity. "Early exposure can make you much more predisposed to complications than might exposure once the body is done maturing. It may be that childhood obesity changes the way the whole metabolism is working – and ch...

I don't particularly like them but did you know that nuts can lengthen your life? According to a study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as reported by newswise.com, "In the largest study of its kind, people who ate a daily handful of nuts were 20 percent less likely to die from any cause over a 30-year period than were those who didn’t consume nuts." If I'm digging in a box of chocolates and wind up with a cashew, I usually throw it out (or give it to my husband, who'll eat anything).  But I may have to take a second look.  The regular nut-eaters were found to be more slender than those who didn’t eat nuts, so eat away, calorie-counters! “The most obvious benefit was a reduction of 29 percent in deaths from heart disease – the major killer of people in America,” newswise.com quotes Charles S. Fuchs, MD, MPH, director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber, who is the senior author of the report. “But we also saw a significant reduction – 11 pe...

That's the question The Atlantic asked today in its story on the effects The Affordable Care Act will have on our healthcare . The reality is that this earlier death rate may be affecting all of us, to some degree, but mostly women in the South and West without a high school diploma.  These women often do not have access to good healthcare, if any at all. The Atlantic reports, "In March, a study published by the University of Wisconsin researchers David Kindig and Erika Cheng found that in nearly half of U.S. counties, female mortality rates actually increased between 1992 and 2006, compared to just 3 percent of counties that saw male mortality increase over the same period." Various studies have put this earlier death rate down to "growing health disadvantages," which have disproportionately had an impact on women over the past three decades. Another study in July found "that inequality in women’s health outcomes steadily increased between 1985 and ...

Let's face it.  No one wants cataract surgery.  (Though I've heard you can throw away your glasses, so I'm up for it!).  But here's a really good reason to have one, if you have to. You''ll live longer. Or so a new study says. According to newswise.com, "People with cataract-related vision loss who have had cataract surgery to improve their sight are living longer than those with visual impairment who chose not to have the procedure, according to an Australian study ." Researchers found a 40 percent lower long-term mortality risk in those who had the surgery.  A different, earlier study found that that older persons with visual impairment were likely to have greater mortality risk than their age peers with normal vision, and that cataract surgery might reduce this risk, the Web site reports. The big question.  Why? It's not magical, unfortunately.  It's probably because people who've had the surgery start taking better car...

Men, have you ever been lying in bed when your legs start to do the Harlem Shake, all on their own?  If you have, you could be at risk for dying early. A new long-term study  has found that men with restless leg sydrome (RLS) do seem to die younger.  Over 18,000 healthy men around the age of 67 were followed for eight years, 3.7% of whom had RLS, characterized as "an irresistible urge to move the legs and often causes leg sensations of burning, creeping, and tugging, which are usually worse at night," according to a story at  newswise.com. During the study, more than 2,700 of the men died, and of the people with RLS, "171, or 25 percent, died during the study, compared to 2,594, or 15 percent, of those who did not have RLS," newswise com reports. The stats are even scarier.  The study found that men with RLS had a nearly 40 percent increased risk of death compared to men without RLS.  And differences in body mass index, lifestyle, chronic...

It's as easy as one-two-three.  Well, not quite.  But the answer is calcium , according to a new study. According to the U.K.'s Daily Mail, women who take 1,000 miligrams of calcium a day "had lower mortality rates," translating into a 22% less chance of dying over 10 years.  Men showed none of the same benefits.  If you're like me, you may remember that many doctors (mine included) warned us off calcium, as earlier studies had shown that it increased the risk of heart disease.  But new studies have proven this wrong. For a while now I've sworn off vitamins (other than fish oil, if that counts) because I've been reading about all the (untrue) claims that purveyors make without having to prove any of them.  Who knows exactly what goes into your vitamin? It could be a sugar pill, for all you know, since they're not regulated.  But I have to say this gave me pause.  Still, if you read down further, the article says that you can also get thi...

Doctors are now saying that a little bit of extra weight may help you live longer.  That's the good news.  The bad news?  Only after age 65.  And your B.M.I. may not need to be under 25, though it should stay in the '20s (sadly, I still don't qualify!!!). http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/health/study-suggests-lower-death-risk-for-the-overweight.html?_r=0