Handedness and Life Span

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Abstract
Observations that the proportion of left-handers in the population decreases substantially with age (diminishing from 13 percent in 20-year-olds to less than 1 percent in 80-year-olds1 , 2) have led to the suggestion that sinistrality may be associated with decreased life span. Such an idea is rendered more plausible by the fact that left-handedness is more prevalent in groups at high risk (e.g., those with histories of birth stress,3 immune deficiencies,4 , 5 or frequent accident-related injuries6). Reduced longevity in left-handers was more clearly demonstrated in an archival study that examined records on 2271 major-league baseball players. The results suggested that after the age of 33, the chance that a left-hander would die in any given year was 1 to 2 percent higher than the chance that a right-hander would die.7