The cost of fame: Study shows celebrities, athletes live shorter lives

Living a lifestyle of the rich and famous could cost you a few years of your life.

According to a study in the QJM Journal of Medicine, which investigated the links between occupational factors and mortality rates, athletes and performers live shorter lives than most people.

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The results were based on one thousand consecutive obituaries published in the New York Times from 2009 to 2011. They were analyzed in terms of gender, occupation and terminal disease. The study found that film, music, and stage performers, as well as high-level athletes, died at a younger age than any other categories. The results provided some intriguing conclusions:

One of the more surprising observations is the fact that someone in the military has a longer lifespan than a high-level athlete. This comes on the heels of an alarming trend of degenerative diseases in retired NFL players indicating that athletes are more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s and other brain impairments.

The study goes on to say that the possibility that performance-based success and fame usually translates into longer life is dispelled the obituary analysis. The researchers separated the obituaries by gender, age, and cause of death as well as by occupation.

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Given the public’s obsession with the celebrity and athlete lifestyles, this study may be alarming. However, there are a number of factors that affect the value of the study. Because they looked at obituaries specifically from the New York Times, the results are confined to an American viewpoint. Additionally, 1,000 obituaries is hardly enough data to draw any watertight conclusions from a study. Results may differ a lot if, say, another thousand were to be analyzed.

So for those aspiring athletes, don’t lose hope yet.