President Robert Mugabe

Dying to be President of the Republic of Kenya? Think again. A new study suggests that presidents tend to age faster and even die earlier compared to their political rivals.

The study published in the peer-reviewed BMJ journal arrived at the conclusion after comparing the rates of aging and death between 540 candidates, including 279 winners of presidential elections and 261 runners-up.

It emerged that those who served as presidents or heads of government lived an average 13.4 years after their last election compared to candidates who never served in office who lived for about 17.8 years. This means that, on average, the presidents lived 4.4 years less than their rivals after their last elections.

It added: "We found that heads of government had substantially accelerated death compared with runner-up candidates. Our findings suggest elected leaders may indeed age more quickly," said Anupam B Jena, Associate Professor at the Havard Medical School in the United States, one of the researchers.

The study added: "Election to public office may lead to accelerated aging due to stress of leadership and political life. A historical examination of medical records of some presidents suggested they may age twice as quickly as their overall population."

The study focused on presidential candidates and their rivals between the year 1772 and 2015 in 17 countries. It zeroed in on leaders in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, UK, and US.

However, the researchers admitted the conclusion of their study may not necessarily be applicable to other countries. The study did not involve any leaders in sub-Saharan Africa.

Previous studies have suggested that presidents tend to live longer than the general population due to their higher standards of living and access to better health care. The study was done by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General School of Medicine, the US National Bureau of Economic Research and the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.