News Story

This is not a blog. This is practice news story beat for my News Gathering class at CU. Enjoy!


Life expectance longer for right-hand people

Being left-handed is not going to kill you. However research suggests that people who are left-handed are at a greater risk of dying early.


Diana Halpern, a psychology professor at California State University at San Bernardino and Stanley Coren, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, examined the death certificates of 987 people in two Southern California counties.


A relative of each of the deceased were contacted about the subjects’ dominant hand.


Although the study was first conducted to determine why there are fewer left-handed people in the elderly population. Results indicate that right-handed people have a longer life expectancy then left-handed people.


“The results are striking in their magnitude,” Halpern said.


Right-handed women tend to live six years longer then left-handed women and right-handed men tend to live 11 years longer than left-handed men.

The average age of death for right-handed people was 75 and for left-handed people 66.


“Some of my best friends are left-handed,” Halpern said.


Left-handed people make up 10 percent of the U.S. population.


Halpern suggests her study should be taking lightly and that it does not take into account the fitness levels of any of the deceased.


“There are many, many old left-handed people,” Halpern said. “It should not, of course, be used to predict the life span of any one individual.