Old Men Have Shorter Life Expectancies

CHICAGO — Results of a study conducted by the Journal of American Research suggest that old men have a shorter life expectancy than that of their younger counterparts.

Funded by the federal government in the mid-1970s, the study compared 500 men over the age of 85 to an equal number of men still in their twenties.

Researchers were surprised to find that in every case, the younger men outlived the older men.

“The data supports our hypothesis that young men have a much longer time to live than do old men,” said Dr. Herbert Browning III, the lead researcher. “If you are an old man, I regret to say, you will die much sooner than a young man.”

The results have been lauded by executives in the advertising industry, who say their clients will probably stop marketing products to old people altogether. “The math is simple,” said Ed Downey of Polamue, Downey and Kachung. “You market your products toward this younger group, because they’re going to have a lot more consumer years than the older group. That is, they’ll be buying a lot more of your stuff before they die than the old guys.”

But old men may have the last laugh, after all. Downing noted that a newer study shows that newborn infants will outlive men in their twenties by at least twenty years.