The Secret to Longevity: Reading Books

If until now you thought that longevity depended, aside from help from above, mainly on a healthy diet and physical activity, meet the new key to a longer life: reading books.

A study that was published last weekend in the academic journal Social Science & Medicine concluded that: "Reading books provides a survival advantage among older adults."

The research, which included 3,965 participants over the age of fifty and tracked them for 12 years, categorized the participants into three groups: those who did not read books at all, those who read books for up to three and a half hours a week, and those who read for more than three and a half hours a week.

The results showed that those who read books for up to three and a half hours a week had a 17% lower risk of death during the study period compared to those who did not read books at all. Those who dedicated more than three and a half hours a week to reading books reduced their mortality risk by 23%.

"People who reported even half an hour of book reading a day had a significant survival advantage over those who did not read books at all," said the study's lead author, Becca R. Levy, a professor of epidemiology at Yale University.

The study also found that books are more beneficial for survival than newspapers or magazines and that the protective effects of books persist regardless of gender, economic status, education, or health.

"These findings demonstrate that among the benefits of book reading are also longer lives in which you can read," the study concluded.