Researchers used data on 3,635 people over 50 participating in a larger health study, the nationally representative, long-term Health and Retirement Study ongoing since 1992. Subjects answer questions about their reading habits when they first join the study.
The scientists divided the sample into three groups: those who read no books, those who read books up to 31/2 hours a week, and those who read books more than 31/2 hours.
The study, "A Chapter a Day: Association of Book Reading With Longevity," is reported in the September issue of Social Science & Medicine. It found that book readers tended to be female, college-educated and in higher income groups. So researchers controlled for those factors as well as age, race, self-reported health, depression, employment and marital status.
Compared with those who did not read books, those who read for up to 31/2 hours a week were 17 percent less likely to die over 12 years of follow-up, and those who read more than that were 23 percent less likely to die. Book readers lived an average of almost two years longer than those who did not read at all.
They found a similar, but weaker, association among those who read newspapers and periodicals.
"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," said the senior author, Becca R. Levy, a professor of epidemiology at Yale.
The Health and Retirement Study is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration. More information is at hrsonline.isr.umich.edu.
Celia Storey added information to this report.
ActiveStyle on 08/15/2016
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