Twins not only have a bestie from birth. They also live longer than singletons. And those two factors may be related, according to new research by the University of Washington. While twins have been the subjects of countless studies that try to separate the effects of nature from nurture, a recent study in PLOS ONE is the first to actually look at what being a twin means for life expectancy. Analysis shows that twins have lower mortality rates for both sexes throughout their lifetimes. The data comes from the Danish Twin Registry, one of the oldest repositories of information about twins. The authors looked at 2,932 pairs of same-sex twins who survived past the age of 10 who were born in Denmark between 1870 and 1900 — so all had a complete lifespan. The authors speculate that this may be so because twins were emotionally closer to each other than siblings and therefore more likely to care for each other.
— Science Daily
