News and Politics | January 22, 2009 | 44 comments

Left handed? You’re on the right track

source: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/01/22/left-handed-you-re-on-the-right-trac...

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HE may be the first black President, but Barack Obama is just the latest in a long line of left-handed presidents to grace the White House.

Historically, left-handedness has been associated with being clumsy and, in medieval times, even evil.

The English word “sinister” derives from the Latin word for “left”, while in Victorian times schoolchildren who used their left hand were forced to tie it behind their back until they became right-handed.

However, Bill Clinton, George H W Bush, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford were all left-handed, showing that being a “southpaw” could be a key attribute when it comes to making it to the Oval Office.

In fact, since 1974, Jimmy Carter and George W Bush have been the only right-handed politicians to have made it to the White House.

Closer to home here in Wales, Southpaw boxer Joe Calzaghe is our most successful left-handed export and, according to his father and trainer Enzo, his left-handed jab has been crucial to his undefeated record.

Even so, one Californian academic has found that being left-handed has its downfalls.

His research discovered that the average lefty died at 66, while his right-hand counterpart lived until 75.

The study claimed that over the age of 33, the chance of a left-hander dying was one to 2% higher than for a right-hander.

Part of the reason was that lefties were far more prone to accidents.

But their higher death rate is not all down to clumsiness.

A study of 12,000 healthy women in Holland showed that left-handers were twice as likely to develop breast cancer – possibly because of exposure to excessive testosterone in their mother’s womb

But as the White House roll call suggests, it can’t all be bad news.

Numerous studies have pointed out that so-called “lefties” are generally more gifted at sport and quicker thinking than their right-handed counterparts.
  1. groups:
    News and Politics,   Inauguration
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    News and Politics,  President Obama,  Inauguration,  Barack Black Eagle,  1 more
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44 comments // Left handed? You’re on the right track

  • keviar
    • 0
      keviar  

    • I write and eat with my left hand and play sports with my right. I am semi ambidextrous i guess :P

      I guess i have some pride for the fact that lefties are more prominent in important social roles even with the fact that less than 10% of humans are left handed.

    • 3 years ago
  • MornRail
  • aswift1
    • 0
      aswift1  

    • I'm gonna chime in with my fellow lefties... I really hate fountain pens- I always smear the ink. As for the stats above- my Grandpa is also a lefty and he is 82...

      Long Live the Lefties!

    • 3 years ago
  • petarro
  • mattbrawn
  • ChewWawa
  • furio15
    • 0
      furio15  

    • ok ,the dying part is kind of false,
      A new study found that the old study was incorrect ,the old study is based on the fact that there are less older left-handers in the world compared to Right-handers, but that's because many of the older generations of left-handers where forced o become right-handers ,hence the reason why there are less left-handers in ratio to right-handers ,not because we die at a younger age

    • 3 years ago
  • mattbrawn
  • footystud
  • enjoydivision
  • joshuaheller
  • petarro
  • aswift1
  • funksoulgurlll
  • dfillingham
    • 0
      dfillingham  
    • funksoulgurlll:

      There is more to even. The brain's geography is a right handed model. If you are left handed, you do not follow the right handed geography. But there is no common model for left handed people like there is for right handed people.

      What this means is that left handed people's brains are more adaptable and can recover more substantially from damage.

      I was totally aphasic (unable to talk) for 4 years, and learned how to in the following two years. The idiot neurologist I saw told us that if I did not recover in the first year, the chances got worse and worse. He did not know about the adaptability of the left handed brain. I learned from my psycho-neurologist, Beth Leimkuhler who has published on it.

      It is good to be left-handed.

    • 3 years ago
  • SANMedia
  • ocanada
  • quixotic12
    • 0
      quixotic12  

    • Haha more gifted at sport? I am left-handed and I'm definitely not athletic. Sometimes clumsy, but my right-handed sister is definitely clumsier. Hmm... I would have to agree with the quicker thinking part though :P haha

    • 3 years ago
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