To be, or not to be - an arts, science, medicine or engineering student? That is the question following a study last week which suggests that what you study could affect your long-term health. According to a new report by Dr Peter McCarron and colleagues at Queen's University Belfast, science and engineering students have the best chances of living a longer, healthier life, followed by medical students, and then those in law and art. Anyone who has been to university may now be worried that what they studied might turn out to be a health time bomb.
The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, is based on health data from over 8,000 men who attended Glasgow University between 1948 and 68, and reflects a time when just 5% of the population attended university. With over 40% of students now enrolling for a university education, reflecting different socioeconomic backgrounds, the variables at play are considerably different.
The research shows that science graduates were the least inclined to smoke and so had the lowest lung cancer rates. They also had the lowest heart disease and death rates overall. McCarron suggests that this has to do with scientists graduating into a relatively secure career environment, but Sir Paul Nurse, CEO of Cancer Research UK and a recent Nobel laureate, believes that scientists, for the most part, have always struggled to find secure employment. Rather, he believes that science and engineering jobs are relatively less stressful, so these graduates are "less likely to be seduced down that course [of alcohol and tobacco misuse] in quite the same way as the other groups".
Medical students were the second heaviest smokers, though their low levels of lung cancer (and cardiovascular disease) suggest, says McCarron, that they "later gave up, whereas the other groups may not have". Dr Raj Persaud, a consultant psychiatrist at Maudsley Hospital in London, understands why: "Most people in medical school tended to give it up the moment they did dissection in anatomy - when they saw a smoker's lungs, which were a charred, black mess as opposed to the pink that lungs are supposed to be, most of them quit smoking almost immediately."
However, medical students were also the most likely to die from alcohol-related causes, including accidents, suicide and violence. Persaud, who runs a stress clinic for doctors, says they have a higher suicide rate because they "have access to drugs and know how best to do away with themselves in a reliable manner". He believes vulnerability is another factor: "They don't want to see themselves as sick, so they have a problem coming forward," he says.
Arts students fare poorly in the report. They smoked heavily (second to lawyers), and had the highest mortality and lung-cancer rates. Their poor health performance is blamed on arts students coming from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds and having relatively fewer employment and income prospects.
However, Ann Widdecombe, Conservative MP and author, who studied Latin, politics, philosophy and economics, refuses to see any merit in the report. "Every week there's a new report out saying that this causes that, or there's a correlation between X and Y. The next week there's another report contradicting it."
Shakespeare wrote, "Let's kill all the lawyers," but this report shows that law students are doing a pretty decent job of it themselves. Mark Stephens, a solicitor with Finers Stephens Innocent, says that the report's assessment of lawyers' long-term habits and health problems is accurate. "In order to be a top lawyer you have to be a workaholic, and that brings with it stresses, so heart disease is an obvious candidate," he says. Criminal barristers particularly tend to be smokers, he says, "usually as a way of breaking down barriers with their client".
The report's findings that lawyers had the second highest rate of alcohol-related deaths and the highest levels of accidents, suicide or violence come as little surprise to Stephens: "I think we all drink more than is probably good for us as a profession, mainly because we have the wherewithal to do it and because it's seen as a way of relieving stress. I think suicide goes with stress. It is an enormously stressful profession because it's only your performance that counts and you're judged on every case," he says.
What can certainly be concluded from the study, McCarron says, is that there is scope for universities to try to do something about reducing the rate of smoking in students. As to whether one field of study should be recommended over another, he's equally convinced: "The old reason for doing a course at university is still the best one: do it because it's what you're interested in. I don't think it is all down to the subject that people do - sure, it's going to dictate to some extent what happens later in life, but that's always in flux."
