From: takemoto@XTAL0.HARVARD.EDU
Subject:      Being left-handed is hazardous to your health... NOT!
Message-ID: <9302180619.AA04218@lll-winken.llnl.gov>
Date:         Thu, 18 Feb 1993 01:17:49 EST

Thanks to our wonderful new mail server, this is the third time I try to
post this message.  Three's a charm?  Don't count on it!

I found an interesting item in the NY Times Tuesday (I also heard about it
last week, but put off mentioning it because I couldn't remember the
details.)  I quote from the article:

"Being left-handed is not a hazard to one's health after all, according to
a study that disputes an earlier report suggesting that left-handed people
are at risk of dying up to 14 years earlier than right-handers.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University
examined the rates of death among elderly people in East Boston, Mass., and
found that left-handed people were at no more risk of dying than right-
handed people."

I had been following the reports claiming that left-handed people died much
younger than right-handed people, and I've always found their conclusions
suspect.  The differences between left-handed people and right-handed people
are much smaller than the differences between females and males, and yet they
conclude that the life expectancy gap is much greater between left-handed
people and right-handed people than between females and males.  Common sense
dictates that a 14-year gap is much too high.

Such misuse of statistics is common in food faddism.  Miraculous claims
about the food du jour are often founded by poorly done studies (often
financed by the food industry.  Hmm...).

BTW, I am in no way connected with the study mentioned in the NY Times,
although I heartily agree with its conclusions.

Darin Takemoto
takemoto@xtal0.harvard.edu