Religion: Long-Lived Nuns

Women live longer than men, but what kind of women live longest? Nuns, according to the results of two studies published by Dr. Con J. Fecher, professor of economics at the Roman Catholic University of Dayton (Ohio). The control of tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, to which members of a close community were especially prone, has added 14 years to a 20-year-old nun’s life expectancy since the turn of the century. After comparing 90,000 nuns in 90 sisterhoods with white females throughout the U.S., from 1900 to 1958, Dr. Fecher also estimated that by 1975 a 20-year-old nun will have a life expectancy of 80 or more—at least four years longer than her counterpart in the lay world.