UM Study: Religion Helps Women Live Longer, But Not Men

​Ladies, if you're looking to add a few years to your life than get right with God. As for the Gentleman, when it comes to life expectancy it doesn't seem to matter if you're an atheist or a priest.

A new study lead by University of Miami psychologist Michael McCullough finds that highly religious woman live longer than ladies of the non-worshiping variety. The same effect wasn't found for men. Though, religious married couples tended to live longer than their lax counterparts.

From Miller-McCune:

[Researchers] found that women in the parabolic (or least-religious) class "had a higher hazard of dying at any point in the adult life course than did the women in the other two (more religious) classes." In contrast, "men in the three trajectory classes did not differ in length of life."

In another interesting finding, the researchers report that "getting married during one's lifetime predicted longer life for people in the highly religious class, but not for people in the parabolic or least religious class, or for the sample overall." They speculate that "perhaps marriage brings with it different health-relevant affordances for highly religious individuals than it does for less-religious individuals."

Though, the study suggests that certain traits that would make one more likely to be religious, may also, independently, lead one to live a longer life.