” He who reads a lot and walks a lot, sees a lot and knows a lot” , said Cervantes. Now, a team of researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine (USA) affirms that those who read, also live longer . The work has been published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.
According to the study’s findings, book readers have a “significant survival advantage” over those who do not read any at all. Without making a distinction between physical books and e-books, the researchers found that book readers live an average of two years longer than those who don’t have this good habit.
For the work, the experts used data from 3,635 people who were part of an even larger health study, who had answered various questions about their reading habits. The survey was divided into three groups: those who did not read any books, those who read books for up to three and a half hours a week, and those who read books for more than three and a half hours a week.
Thus, those who read up to 3.5 hours a week were 17% less likely to die during the 12 years of study follow-up than those who read absolutely no works. Those who read even more were 23% less likely to die, compared to nonreaders. These results were confirmed even after controlling for factors such as age, race, health, depression, employment, or marital status.
” People who reported half an hour of reading books a day had a significant survival advantage over those who did not read,” commented Becca R. Levy, co-author of the paper.
