Did you know that of the past six US presidents, four were left-handed? Make that five out of seven – Barack Obama is also left-handed. (Perhaps Al Gore would have won in 2000 if he publicized that he, too, is a lefty.) So do left-handers have some sort of presidential edge over the rest of us? Perhaps. For nearly all right-handers, language abilities reside exclusively on one side of the brain – usually the left, which controls the right hand. But one in seven lefties process language on both sides of the brain, which some think enhances their language abilities (think Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama). Read more.
Left-handedness was also suggested to be a risk factor for breast cancer in women. A Dutch study that examined over 12,000 women found that lefties were more than twice as likely to develop premenopausal breast cancer. Researchers believe that exposure to high levels of sex hormones during fetal development may induce left-handedness and can trigger changes in breast tissue that predispose to cancer growth later in life. However, scientists are quick to remind us that breast cancer is an extremely complex disease with various potential causes, and simply being left-handed will not single-handedly (no pun intended) cause breast cancer.
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Tags: breast, Cancer, hormones, left handed, presidents
Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.