Analysis of survival rates of sportsmen utilizing Cutler-Ederer method

Few studies have been conducted in Japan on the relationship between sports and the length of human life, i.e. the life-prolonging effect of exercise. In this paper, we conducted such research on 3,113 male graduates of a national university having a faculty of physical education. The subjects were divided according to their academic majors, which included physical education, humanities, and science courses. The following results were obtained: 1) Comparison of ages at death showed that physical education majors were distinctly represented in lower age groups. 2) Comparison of average ages at death by dividing the subjects into 20-year intervals according to their years of birth, revealed that physical education majors do not necessarily live longer and tend to die relatively young. 3) Comparison of average ages at death, including death by war, indicated that physical education majors lived 8.572 and 7.792 years less than humanities and science course majors, respectively. When death by war was excluded, the results were 6.189 and 5.548 years, respectively. Both results were statistically significant. 4) Comparison of cumulative survival rates utilizing Cutler-Ederer method showed that the rates of survival of physical education majors were low.