AppId is over the quota
Turning gray and developing jowls while holding the hardest job in the USA does not cut life short, according to new research.
Getty Images
Obama's estimated life span is 79.3 years, according to Olshansky, but he adds that Obama will probably live longer than that because of his education, wealth and health care.
Getty Images
Obama's estimated life span is 79.3 years, according to Olshansky, but he adds that Obama will probably live longer than that because of his education, wealth and health care.
"These outward signs of aging might appear faster in presidents, but there's no evidence they die sooner than other men," says S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "I think in general they do very well."
PHOTOS: Presidents who have lived longer
Olshansky aimed to verify or shoot down speculation that presidents while in office age twice as fast as other men. He estimated presidential life spans on the day each was inaugurated and compared those predictions to how long they actually lived. He found 23 of 34 presidents who died of natural causes lived beyond the average life expectancy for men of the same age, even if they experienced accelerated aging. His report is published in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The presidents hit the trifecta," says Olshansky. "Being wealthy, having 16-plus years of education (for most) and access to good medical care is good news for presidents and prospective presidents. For those who don't have those three things, the news is not as good."
Among the last eight presidents who died of natural causes, seven lived beyond their projected life span to an average of 81.6 years. Only Lyndon Johnson did not. He died of a massive heart attack in 1973 when he was 64.4. He was age 55.2 when he was sworn into office, and life expectancy for men that age in 1963 was an additional 18.9 years.
"There is a terrible misunderstanding about stress (and longevity)," says Howard Friedman, co-author of The Longevity Project, an eight-decade study of 1,500 people. "People are being given rotten advice to slow down, take it easy, stop worrying and retire. The Longevity Project discovered that those who worked the hardest lived the longest — the responsible and successful achievers thrived in every way, especially if they were dedicated to things and people beyond themselves."
Friedman added he thinks at least one of the current living former presidents will live to 100. Recent Census data show the number of people living to 90 and beyond has tripled in the past three decades and is likely to quadruple by 2050.
Olshansky was working on his research when a CBS news report on Obama turning 50 on Aug. 4 raised the question: "Do presidents undergo accelerated aging while in office?" The report showed photos of Obama on Jan. 15, 2008, and July 31, 2011. His hair is turning gray and he appears to have some wrinkles in the July photo.
"The presidents are really doing the same things as the rest of us," says Olshansky. "If you took photographs of the rest of us four or eight years apart in our 50s and 60s, we, too, would appear to age. The fact is that people who focus on the presidents take pictures of them every day. It's not surprising that we see them age before our eyes."
Friedman also does not give the photos merit: "This is meaningless, because we do not have a control group to see how he would look if he were in another job."
Olshansky said his predictions for Obama's life span are underestimated because they're based on his age, 50, and don't take into account that he's highly educated. By comparison, estimates for someone older than him would be higher because they've already survived longer.
Estimates of life expectancy at birth for white males with 16-plus years of education is 8.6 years higher than white males with less than a high school education. Black males get an 6.9 extra years with a college education. Obama's estimated life span is 79.3 years, according to Olshansky, but he adds that Obama will probably live longer than that because of his education, wealth and health care.
No comments:
Post a Comment