It doesn't pay to be a pop star if you want a healthy life and definitely not if you want a long one.

Research from a University of Sydney academic suggests musicians, both male and female, have a shorter lifespan on average than the rest of the community. The difference is hardly insignificant too, with pop and rock stars likely to die up to 25 years earlier than their regular living compatriots and the chances of an accidental death being between five and 10 times greater if you make music rather than merely listen to it.

As reported on the academic website theconversation.com, professor of psychology and music, Diana Kenny, examined US statistics and compared deaths in the general community with musicians who died between 1950 and June 2014. The musicians were predominantly – 90 per cent – male but spread across more than a dozen genres from honky tonk to electroclash.

While the average age of death for women reached above 80 by 2010 and that for men was just over 75, the average age for female musicians was early 60s and for men, late 50s. Breaking down the causes of death, Kenny's research shows death by accident more than doubled for musicians (12.2 per cent compared with 5.01) and similarly with suicides (4.6 compared with 1.59), and that deaths by homicide were about six times more likely for musicians than the general population (4.9 compared with 0.7).