Your Kids Might Extend Your Life

(RxWiki News) Being a parent could extend your life, according to a new study.

Compared to those without children, parents may live as much as two years longer, this study found.

This study looked at more than 704,000 men and 725,000 women from the age of 60 onward. Taking other factors into account, these researchers compared the life spans of those with and without children.

They found, for example, that an 80-year-old man who was a parent had a 7.4 percent chance of dying within one year, this study found. For a man of the same age who didn’t have children, that risk was 8.3 percent. The gender of the child did not appear to have an effect.

The life span difference between parents and non-parents became more pronounced as the study participants got older, the study authors found.

“Our finding that the association grew stronger when parents became older is further in agreement with research suggesting that childless people face support deficits only toward the end of life,” the study authors wrote.

This study does not necessarily establish cause and effect, these researchers noted.

This research was published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. The study authors disclosed no outside funding sources or potential conflicts of interest.