Left-handed women 40% more likely to die from any cause - wft?

[RanToTheHills]

anyone read the article in yesterday's Torygraph linking to a "study" into lefthandeness and fact that women 40% more likely to die from any cause and 70% more likely to do so from cancer!
How robust this research was, not sure, not an expert but as a Lefthander not exactly reassured, to say the least!

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/02/nleft02.xml

oh and if I am to die early I will post on here from the grave, just to prove youall wrong!

but has anyone researhced into how lefthanders brains are wired and the effect on health/mortality/morbidity rates??

You are suprised that we are unbothered by in RTTH? Well.. what can we do other than work on becoming ambidextrous?

To me it's one of those non-worries.. I can do bugger all about it so I'll occupy my thoughts with the overdraft instead.. (which, actually, I am equally powerless to control it seems... )

women probably because that was their study group. Women tend to live longer than men - so you have a bigger population of women to do a study on.

Without reading the original research you can't tell whether it is something relating just to women, or even something specific to elderly Dutch women (since I think the study was Dutch).

It might be a seful indicator of where to target medical research but not much use otherwise.

useful not seful

lh people are meant to be more balanced in outlook, hence the lack of worry i expect [trips over massively overdeveloped left hand and brains self]

Because you are all indeed the Spawn of Satan, and the Gods wish to distroy you all.

AND we are "creative" and "sensual"... who needs a long life too??

I was on the uni library site anyway, so I looked up the journal...
I can't get the full text but the abstract says...

"During a median follow-up of 12.6 years, 252 women died. Hazard ratios comparing left-handed women with other women were 1.4 for all-cause mortality (95% confidence interval = 0.9-2.0), 1.7 for total cancer mortality (1.0-2.7), 2.0 for breast cancer mortality (0.8-4.6), 4.6 for colorectal cancer mortality (1.5-14.3), 1.3 mortality from diseases of the circulatory system (0.5-3.3), and 3.7 for cerebrovascular mortality (1.1-12.1), after adjusting for potential confounders (socioeconomic status, age, body mass index, and cigarette smoking status at study recruitment)."

So, they found some evidence that middle aged Dutch women who are left handed are more likely to die from colorectal cancer or stroke. All the others have a confidence interval crossing 1 and, for a hazard ratio, that means that they failed to show that the different death rates are any different to chance variation between the RH and LH groups. With 252 deaths I'm guessing that not many will have been LH, making the numbers quite unstable and difficult to draw firm conclusions from.

So yes, further research on colorectal cancer particularly and also some interest in the stroke rates, but the other reported 'increases' could well be down to chance variation, and based on small-ish numbers. Some scaremongering in the reporting I think

Ends epidimiology spod moment...

It occured to me that the group of 'older women' where LHs are underrepresented might include people who were forced to write with their right hands when young (and might not even remember.

My father was (and only knows as his mother told him!).

Agree tht it was badly written science (and use of statistics)

As a LH (south paw etc etc etc ) I always home on these articles "Left handers are more likely to.............like milk/excel at tennis/vote Lib Dem" - just take your pick!

As the mother of three left-handed dcs (dh and I, and dc4 right-handed) reports like this always cause me an anxious moment or two. What I do know from scientist friends is that most scientific research gets very badly reported by the press, lots of pulling out the bits that will grab our attention and distorting them. Otherwise would all make very dry reading. It does irritate me. Do agree with the research that claims lefties more intelligent, creative, musical, etc etc, of course!

says 100% of us are likely to die from some cause or other

unless of course you are trying to find them for family history purposes - in which case they just disappear ....

I'm ambidextrous.

Guess it's 100% likely I'll die.

I'm left-handed, i'll accept my fate when the time comes

ok,ok, thanks for all the piss-takes!

Bikebug, so "further research on colorectal cancer particularly and also some interest in the stroke rates" would be valid then, in yr view. Hope someone takes this on then. Meanwhile will try to stay healthy