The Key To a Longer and Healthier Life
Hey, if that won't make you read a post, what will? Today's NYTimes has a fascinating article that says that, so long as you don't smoke, in which case all bets are off, you can add time to the end of your life by adding years to your formal education. And before you tsk tsk, like I did, that the capacity for more education simply means you have more wealth, more access to adequate health care, yadda yadda...they thought of that.

It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income.
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And, health economists say, those factors that are popularly believed to be crucial — money and health insurance, for example, pale in comparison.
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[W]hen her analysis was finished, Dr. Lleras-Muney says, “I was surprised, I was really surprised.” It turned out that life expectancy at age 35 was extended by as much as one and a half years simply by going to school for one extra year.
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In every country, compelling children to spend a longer time in school led to better health.

Here's the most insteresting explanation:

[E]ducation, Dr. Smith at RAND finds, may somehow teach people to delay gratification. For example, he reported that in one large federal study of middle-aged people, those with less education were less able to think ahead.

“Most of adherence is unpleasant,” Dr. Smith says. “You have to be willing to do something that is not pleasant now and you have to stay with it and think about the future.”

He deplores the dictums to live in the moment or to live for today. That advice, Dr. Smith says, is “the worst thing for your health.”

And lest you think that it is those able to think ahead that are the ones that go through with more education, and not the other way around, there's this:

“You might think that forcing someone to go to school who does not want to be there may not be the same thing as going to school because you want to,” Dr. Lleras-Muney said. “That did not seem to be the case.”

As a personal bonus, if delaying the gratification of a Ph.D. increases longevity, I'll live to be 140!