Scientists who have won a Nobel Prize live nearly two years longer than those who have only been nominated, suggesting that social status confers "health-giving magic," British researchers say.
The researchers say there is evidence to link health and status in monkeys but it has been difficult until now to do the same for humans because status often brought more wealth, which improves living standards and medical care.
Andrew Oswald, an economist at Warwick University, conducted the study with Matthew Rablen, a former Warwick postgraduate researcher who is now a government economist.
"Status seems to work a kind of health-giving magic," Professor Oswald said in a university press release.
"Once we do the statistical corrections, walking across that platform in Stockholm apparently adds about two years to a scientist's life-span.
"How status does this, we just don't know."
The study, entitled "Mortality and Immortality" and published this month, focused on Nobel prize winners "as an ideal group to study as the winners could be seen as having their status suddenly dropped on them" the statement said.
They were easy to study because they could be directly measured against those who were nominated for a Nobel prize but did not actually win one.
The researchers studied 524 men - 135 winners and 389 nominees - in the competition for the physics and chemistry prizes between 1901 and 1950.
1950 was the cut-off point because the full list of nominees is kept secret for 50 years.
They looked at one sex only to avoid differences in life span between sexes.
The total had been 528 but they dropped four who died in war or from other causes that were not natural.
The average life span for this group was just over 76 years.
Prize winners lived 1.4 years longer on average - or 77.2 years - than those who were merely nominated for the award.
"When the survey was restricted to only comparing winners and nominees from the same country, the longevity gap widened even more by around another two thirds of a year on average," the university said in a statement.
Though the prize money increased with time, the actual amount had no effect on the longevity of the recipient, the researchers said, "suggesting that it is the sheer status boost of the award that is important in extending lifespan".
They also tried to determine whether the number of times a scientist was nominated for a Nobel Prize had any effect, but found none.
"Actually winning the Nobel prize was what counted," they said.
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