What is understood by researchers investigating whether urban legends such as "chess players are short lived" are true?

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Seychelles and Uzbekistan delegation died in 2014 at the chess competition "Chess Olympiad" held in Norway. There is a urban legend that "Chess players will prematurely die" because chess players will be reported much news dying during or during the game, and chess players will be sitting down, etc. I will. Researchers investigated whether this urban legend is true or not.

Longevity of outstanding sporting achievers: Mind versus muscle
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196938

Checkmate: top chess players live longer
https://theconversation.com/checkmate-top-chess-players-live-longer-96019

At the chess-Olympiad in 2014, a 76-year-old Kurt Meyer died of a heart attack in the middle of the game and carried to a hospital. Also, Uzbekistan delegate Alichel Aanclof is also dying at the hotel after the gameIt was discovered. Furthermore, during the game in Finland in 2000Grand MasterHe had a heart attack, and in the same year a player in Berlin caused a stroke during the tournament, he said that the image of "playing chess is bad for the body" is held.

So, David Smerdon Associate Professors at the University of Queensland in Australia, etc. decided to investigate "Do playing chess at the top level increase the risk of early death?"

Although there are many researches on the relationship between physical sports and the risk of death,Mind SportsThere are few studies on the relationship between the risk of death and the risk of death. The only researchers were able to find was the research conducted in 1969, where it was concluded that "professional chess players have a shorter lifespan than amateurs." However, the subject of this study was a person born in the 19th century32 people were includedAnd that.

On the other hand, speaking of physical athletes, professional athletes have lower risk of early death as compared with the general populationIt is concluded.

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Associate Professor Smerdon is an economist and an Australian Grand MasterDavid SmerdonWe conducted an investigation in cooperation with Mr.

First, researchers have written the chess Grand Master's birthday, death day and place of originList of WikipediaI hit it. AlsoInternational Olympic Committee websiteSince nearly 130,000 athlete information is registered, data of 15,000 medalists in the same hometown as chess players are extracted from among them. After that, we compared how the average lifespan of chess players, physical athletes, and general people in the same country is different.

As a result, the urban legend that "top-level chess players are short-lived" was betrayed, and it turned out that the chess players had a longer life expectancy of up to 14 years compared to the general public. In particular, this trend was remarkable in countries with relatively short lifespan, such as Russia. Also, the relationship between average lifespan of players and civilians in chess depicts patterns similar to the relationship between Olympic athlete and average person's life expectancy.

However, the reason for this is not clear.Living without sittingIt is thought that chess players are also short lived, as they are thought to have a great influence on health and longevity, but in 2009 research chess playersIt is healthier than ordinary peopleIt has been shown that. On the other hand, although the relationship between high IQ and longevity is recognized, it is said that the relationship between chess ability and IQ is not definitive indeed. It is possible that taking the position of the Grand Master may also lead to longevity by boosting people psychologically, socially and economically.

byVlad Sargu