http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/07/%E2%80%98us-presidents-live-longer-than-average-men%E2%80%99.html


WASHINGTON: Gray hair and a wrinkled brow beset most US presidents  
soon after they take office, but a study Tuesday said most live longer  
than average men due to their wealth and access to medical care.

Some research has suggested that US presidents age twice as fast as  
regular people while in office, so University of Illinois at Chicago  
demographer S. Jay Olshansky decided to see if that was indeed the case.

His study, published in the December 7 issue of the Journal of the  
American Medical Association, excludes the four who were assassinated:  
Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, James Garfield and William McKinley.

?Of 34 deceased presidents who died of natural causes, 23 lived longer  
than expected with accelerated aging, with a mean age at death of 78.0  
years, while their estimated age at death (with accelerated aging) was  
67.0 years,? he wrote.

Accelerating aging means that for each day a president spent in  
office, two days of life were subtracted from the estimated lifespan  
of men at his age in the year he took office.

In other words, a four-year term would take eight years off a life.

So most leaders of the free world have lived an average of 11 years  
longer than would be expected if they aged twice as fast while in  
office.

Among the 11 presidents who died younger than expected, their mean  
lifespan was 62.1 years, just about five years short of the average  
man?s for those periods.

Looking back at the lifespan of average men over time, Olshansky found  
the mean was 73.3 years. The observed mean lifespan of all 34 deceased  
presidents was not much different: 73.0 years.

?This study found no evidence that US presidents die sooner, on  
average, than other US men,? he wrote.

The gap in lifespan was most pronounced when he looked back at the  
first eight US presidents, dating from George Washington in 1789 to  
Martin Van Buren who took office in 1841.

The average lifespan for these first eight presidents was 79.8 years,  
while the life expectancy for other men at the time was less than 40.

?We know that socioeconomic status has an extremely powerful effect on  
longevity now, and it was likely to have been a factor in the past,?  
he said, noting that all but 10 US presidents were college educated;  
all were wealthy; and all had access to health care.

?We don?t die from gray hair and wrinkled skin,? said Olshansky, who  
became interested in the topic after seeing a swell of media reports  
earlier this year about how fast President Barack Obama, now 50,  
appeared to be aging.

?What we?re seeing in President Obama is really not inconsistent with  
what we see for any other man his age in the United States or  
elsewhere.?

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