Health Highlights: Aug. 5, 2016

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

Book Readers Live Longer

Reading books may help you live longer, a new study says.

Researchers followed more than 3,600 people over age 50 for 12 years and found that compared to those who did not read books, those who read books up to three-and-a-half hours a week were 17 percent less likely to die, and those who read more than that were 23 percent less likely to die, The New York Times reported.

A similar, but weaker, association was found among people who read newspapers and periodicals, according to the study in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

“People who report as little as a half-hour a day of book reading had a significant survival advantage over those who did not read,” said senior author Becca Levy, professor of epidemiology, Yale University, The Times reported.

“And the survival advantage remained after adjusting for wealth, education, cognitive ability and many other variables,” she added.

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