The Presidency Can Add Years to Your Life

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Ron Faucheux, The Presidency Can Add Years to Your Life; No president since Nixon has died before reaching his 90s. Wall Street Journal, Dec 10, 2018 (in the Opinion page right before editorials).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the ... our-life-1544396376

Quote:

(a) "George Herbert Walker Bush—94 years, 171 days old—lived longer than any president in American history. * * * The average lifespan of the first four presidents—George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison—was 81, a particularly impressive number when you consider that average male longevity in those days was 37. Life expectancy was held down by high infant mortality rates, but even a boy who survived childhood couldn't expect to live past 58.

(b) "Presidential longevity took a slide in the 19th century. The 10 presidents after Madison lived, on average, to be 70. Averages have bounced around since, pulled down by the assassinations of two presidents in their 40s [James A Garfield 2 months shy of 50 in 1881; JFK at 46] and two in their 50s [Lincoln at 56 and McKinley 58].

"The more recent presidents have lived longest. The last three to die were all nonagenarians: Bush at 94, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan at 93. These men—along with Jimmy Carter, who is alive and well at 94 and will reach Bush’s age March 21—are the four longest-living presidents in history. Interestingly, all four ran against at least one of the other three. The only other two presidents to reach 90 were John Adams and Herbert Hoover. Both failed to win re-election.

(c) "Oddly, recent presidents have been born in clusters. ill Clinton, George W Bush and Donald Trump are all 72, born within a 67-day period in 1946. Mr Carter was born less than four months after George HW Bush. Richard Nixon, Ford and Reagan were all born within three years, 1911-13.

Note:
(a) The essay is locked behind paywall. There is no need to read the rest.
(b) the author is a lawyer, with JD from Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge and his PhD in Political Science from the University of New Orleans.  Wikipedia.