I know I've taken a few years off my life just stressing out about it...but seriously, there are some studies in the Nordic countries that show this to be true in those studies. Who knows why...its a disease where diabetics and alcoholics get it more frequently and they live shorter lives too but I would have thought the studies would control for this factor.

At the Depatment of Hand Surgery, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden between 1965 and 1996, a study observing 16,517 in-patients discharged from the hospital after surgery for DC. There were 7,579 deaths in the group during the 30 years of observation. The expected number of deaths was 7,132. "We observed a significant increase in overall mortality for both genders in all age groups except in patients under 20 years of age, in women between 30 and 39 years of age, and among patients over the age of 70 at the time of surgery. The increased risk was as high as 67% among men in the age group 30 - 49 years, and in women the risk was more than doubled if they underwent surgery for DC before the age of 50. Analysing the overall increase in mortality according to the time since surgery for DC revealed no increase in risk up to 5 years after surgery. However, a clear increase in mortality was noted 5 - 9 years after surgery (8%), 10 - 14 years after surgery (13%), and >15 years after surgery (26%).
Cancer was the second most common cause of death (25%) with a significantly increased overall mortality of 20%."

"There was a significantly increased risk for buccal, oesophageal, gastric, lung and pancreatic cancers, which indicates that smoking and alcohol abuse are probable risk factors for DC."

The 53 page summary of the study can be found on the web.

I'm sure that if they would have had NA instead of surgery that their life would have been prolonged considerably.

Both had hand surgery see;

http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk/so/detail2.asp?level2=Dupuytrens%20Contracture%20-%20Partial%20Fasciectomy

If you read the articles about life expectancy, one conclusion reached by the authors is that the same **behaviors** may be correlated with both Dups and early death: i.e.: smoking and alcohol abuse. Both are known to create free radicals, so they may both independently contribute to Dups and cancer in the same way. It may simply be that among Dups sufferers there are a larger than normal percentage of smokers and alcoholics, because those may help trigger Dups in genetically prone individuals. This may be enough to explain the statistical correlation between Dups and life expectancy.

Therefore, it may be inferred, that if you don't smoke, and aren't an alcoholic, there may be no connection between your case of Dups and your untimely (early) demise whatsoever. It's the smoking and alcohol abuse that always have that correlation, not the Dups in itself. Correlation does not prove causation.