Price of being a Celebrity is Early Death: Study

The price for being famous is high. A study reveals that celebrities having a successful career in the entertainment or sports fields tend to die at a younger age, according to Reuters.

The study, published in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, was conducted by professor Richard Epstein and Catherine Epstein from the Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Sydney, Australia.

To prove their finding, they examined 1,000 obituaries that were published in The New York Times during 2009 and 2011. They looked at the gender, age, occupation and cause of death.

The researchers then divided them into four different categories, namely, 'performance/sport', 'non-performing creative that includes writers, composers', 'business/political/military', and 'professional/ religious/academic'.

On analyzing the data, the researchers noticed that those who had a career in entertainment or sports died at an average age of 77, people belonging to the academic field died at the age of 82, and the ones from the creative career group survived till the age of 79. The business or politics category people managed to survive till the age of 83.  

Focusing on the cause of death, the researchers found that earlier deaths were linked to infections, accidents or cancer. Apart from this, they even noticed that the obituaries of men were more, being 813 in number when compared to females, which was just 186.The average age of death was high in men, being 80, and less in women, just 78.

"A one-off retrospective analysis like this can't prove anything, but it raises some interesting questions. First, if it is true that successful performers and sports players tend to enjoy shorter lives, does this imply that fame at younger ages predisposes to poor health behaviours in later life after success has faded?" said Epstein.

He continues to say that is it the family pressure that supports high public achievement that finally leads to one's destruction. Conversely, he speculates whether it is that one's chances of being successful depends on their risk-taking personality traits such as the use of cigarettes, alcohol or illicit drugs.

Young people who aspire to become celebrities can view these as health warnings.