Or at least that’s the idea I proposed in the late 1970s. Since then, the evidence to support this disposable soma theory has grown significantly—something I wrote about in Scientific American in September [“Why Can’t We Live Forever?”]. In my own laboratory some years ago we showed that longer-lived animals have better maintenance and repair systems than short-lived animals do. The longer-lived animals are also the smarter ones, or the bigger ones, or the ones like birds and bats that evolved adaptations such as wings to make their lives safer. If you can avoid the hazards of the environment for a bit longer by flying away from danger or being cleverer or bigger, then the body is correspondingly a bit less disposable, and it pays to spend more energy on repair.
Could it be that women live longer because they are less disposable than men? This notion, in fact, makes excellent biological sense. In humans, as in most animal species, the state of the female body is very important for the success of reproduction. The fetus needs to grow inside the mother’s womb, and the infant needs to suckle at her breast. So if the female animal’s body is too much weakened by damage, there is a real threat to her chances of making healthy offspring. The man’s reproductive role, on the other hand, is less directly dependent on his continued good health.
It is too extreme to say that for all biology cares, males need only to attract a mate and then can pretty much die. A study of children in Tanzania, for example, showed that children who lost a father before the age of 15 tended to be a little shorter than their peers, and height is a reasonably good proxy for health. But children who lost a mother fared even worse—they were shorter, poorer and did not live as long as fatherless orphans. From an evolutionary point of view, however, the drivers of mating success for males are generally not the drivers of longevity. In fact, high levels of testosterone, which boost male fertility, are quite bad for long-term survival.
Women may still struggle to achieve equality in many spheres of life. To be less disposable, however, is a blessing that offers some compensation. There is evidence from studies in rodents that cells in a female body do repair damage better than in the body of a male and that surgical removal of the ovaries eliminates this difference. As many dog and cat owners can attest, neutered male animals often live longer than their intact counterparts. Indeed, the evidence supports the notion that male castration might be the ticket to a longer life.
Might the same be true of humans? Eunuchs were once members of the elite in many societies. In China, boys were castrated to enable them to serve the emperor without the risk of impregnating his concubines. In Europe, such extreme practices were used to retain the singing qualities of boys as they moved into adolescence.
The historical record is not good enough to determine if eunuchs tend to outlive normal healthy men, but some sad records suggest that they do. A number of years ago castration of men in institutions for the mentally disturbed was surprisingly commonplace. In one study of several hundred men at an unnamed institution in Kansas, the castrated men were found to live on average 14 years longer than their uncastrated fellows. Nevertheless, I doubt that many men—myself included—would choose such a drastic remedy to buy a few extra years.
This article was originally published with the title Why Women Live Longer.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
49 Comments
Add CommentMen and women are living longer now than they used to. I find it unrealistic to think that some ratio whereby women live longer is encoded in our genes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMuch more plausible are environmental factors, men are exposed to more violence and stress - which has accumulated some evolutionary changes. Dismissing this because very recent moves towards gender equality is foolish, because: 1. There is still plenty of inequality for both genders and 2. because it has not been equal nearly long enough to affect people on an evolutionary basis.
I remember reading some study about the downers of testosterone a few years ago(esp. the part about the inmates castration finding).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm pushing 50. The kids are grown and married. Why would I need to continue poisoning myself with this hormone? Long live longevity.
People are already outliving their productive lives, simply consuming energy, water and food resources. While we all would like to greedily live forever, there is purpose in death: to release resources for subsequent generations' productive consumption. While I still enjoy living, in fact I'm already dead weight on Earth, simply consuming resources and producing waste. The 'health' industry would be much more productive focusing on the health of the young rather than keeping us dead people alive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMen have not historically been exposed to more violence or stress than women, except in fighting wars. Evolution seeks out whatever works best for survival of a species. Survival of the young depends on survival of the mother. The father may be necessecary for her survival. Woman's body was built to take more stress & pain, because more endurance was required.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMedical science has given us all a better chance at longevity, & hopefully will someday close the gap. Most men wouldn't consider castration a solution, & neither would I.
About living forever-why would anyone want to? Once your quality of life slides far enough downhill, you realize that. If you still have your right mind. Any culture worth it's salt takes care of its old folks, but death is eventually necessary. Picture a wasp nest, all members working, guarding, devoting their lives to the survival of the young, who are developing in the cells...but it's old wasps instead, & they can't build a new nest because every resource is needed for this one. Not sustainable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe in caring for our elderly (what with being one of them), but let's focus on good health for all, not on something silly like living on this earth forever.
slostartr, if our bodies repaired cells enough better than they do now, the quality of life wouldn't have to go down. Most of the symptoms of old age are caused, directly or indirectly, by our bodies' inability to continue regenerating themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a long enough timeline I agree, we would eventually need to die, but there's no reason not to aim for expanding our lifetimes beyond their current reach, especially if we can somehow postpone senescence. Imagine if you were as healthy at 70 as at 50 thanks to your body being able to regenerate better. If that were the case, most people would continue to be productive in some fashion, contributing to the resources of the whole.
My grandfather is 90 and still works part-time as a CPA. He's lucid and physically strong thanks to some fantastic genes and taking care of himself, and he's still a productive member of society. If more people could retain that level of energy and ability into their eighth and ninth decades, I don't see how anyone could say that's a bad thing.
When I was born in 1950 there were about 2.5 billion people on the planet. There are now nearly 7 billion people. We are now not only burning non-replenished fossil energy but consuming fossil water from non-replenished aquifers for drinking water as well as the irrigation of highly fertilized crops grown with petroleum based pesticides. We've over-harvested the fish in the seas and the expected global warming will likely raise sea levels enough to decimate out largest coastal cities where most people now live.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me know in a few decades what you think about the longevity breakthrough now being pursued though research so highly funded by the living dead. I wager the Earth cannot reliably support the current population, the expected increase and the unexpected increase produced by a breakthrough in longevity, that most will suffer and billions of starving people will die young. Maybe that's not a bad thing, I don't know.
As we describe in our book (Titel: Eating Healthy and Dying Obese, which will appear by the end of November), the explanation is very simple: women have in average a lower Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) than men!!! This means they 'burn' at a lower rate!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently, it has been shown, that people with high BMR liveshoeter than those with a lowone, thisis true for women and men!
Animals with high BMR (Mice) live much shorter than animals with low RMR (Turtle).
Leoluca Criscione, Switzerland
Live now, die later! As a female of the species, I feel better now than in my forties, and that was 20 years ago ! How so? By gradually switching from a meat & ethanol- fuelled lifestyle to much less body stress - thanks to simple, life- and time- saving, regular Salad Days, together with my friends. I felt I could help them by writing a "Don't Cook Book", from which I can quote this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Let me invite you to watch at your next social get-together how most men seem to shun salads and fruits as 'un-manly', as if THEIR bodies did NOT need Vitamin C, which, like fibre, is only found in raw, uncooked plant food. Little wonder then, that a man's lifespan is biologically about 7 years less than a woman's, maybe because of the fact that women at least tend to SAMPLE a few raw veggies before throwing the rest of them in the cooking pot!
- For a wife, feeding the man in her life mainly meat without fresh fruits and veg's on a daily basis is a downright recipe for becoming a premature widow; no joking!"
For more tips about living more happily & youthfully ever after:
Welcome to our interactive WWW. Youthevity.com
In nature, species that live longer and have a high rate of infant survival tend to also reproduce less. Even in humans we can see that our longer average lifespans have coincided with a reduction in our birth rate, though this has a lot to do with the advent of birth control and not as much to do with the natural forces of population pressure and the biological need to replace oneself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost of what we would consider the "1st World" has a very low population growth rate, and there's plenty of reason to believe that it would continue to drop the longer we're able to live. It's harsh to say, but any advance in medical technology would likely be spread through the industrialized world and not make it to the poorer, higher-population-growth nations. It's also those nations that would tend to see massive shortages of resources in the event of any major problem with food supplies. None of this is pretty, but there we are.
There is an excellent sci-fi treatment of this concept in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, I highly recommend it.
Women have two copies of most genes, being XX. Men are XY.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf women carry a bad gene, say for haemophilia, the other gene can take over.
A woman can be a carrier, but it's the man who gets the disease.
Perhaps there are other genes besides the sex-linked ones where this happens.
But I'm no doctor, just a fit 81 year old now doing all the "man's work" as well as my own.
So, what, you're not worried because you don't think that you'll suffer the consequences of overpopulation or that you won't have any grandchildren that will starve? Do you live in a coastal city? Do you eat food produced by irrigating crops from the Ogallala Aquifer using petroleum derived fertilizers or insecticides? I think we can expect unprecedented events and conditions to occur. Let me know about science fiction in a couple of decades. Sorry to be so blunt, but I think its strictly necessary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI feel very healthy at 56. Run everyday...eat no red meat (not against it). Not much stress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want to live to a healthy 85 or so.
however:
The issue with studying longevity is the difficulty in knowing 'what' is healthy for a long life as opposed to a productive shorter one. A male definitely needed to eat a lot of meat, put on the pounds, etc. when life expectancy was 40. infection, starvation, a broken bone or whatever was going to do you in lng before heart disease or cancer. in contrast the things that kept you going strong might weaken our bodies in the longer run.
bottom line. The quest for a a healthy life into the 80's and 90's is based on 'educated speculation' at best. I'll keep running, stay trimn and eat my vegies but no guarantee it'll add time to the clock.
was working on my reply, but you said it better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks. I'm still pretty quick for a few minutes right after I wake up...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi All,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recently joined Scientific American and am the editor in charge of "The Science of Health" column. (As an aside, I wrote the SOH column on primary care that ran a few weeks back: http://bit.ly/d3MpH0 and have written another one that will come out in a couple weeks.) My goal for the SOH columns is to cover the science behind an "emerging consensus" in a field or the science behind an "instructive controversy." Was wondering if you all have ideas of topics I should consider covering?
Some ideas I have: What are the most successful ways to quit smoking? Which cancer screening tests make the most sense? Is preventive medicine ever a mistake? Whatever happened to the hygiene hypothesis for asthma and allergy?
Use the comment form here to let me know your thoughts.
Thanks,
Christine
Christine
Hi Christine,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know if you'll find any help here, so I'll point out a novel and controversial approach to quitting smoking.
I had been smoking the same low volume, high quality U.S. produced for export only cigarette for 40 years when, last fall, the manufacturer dropped the product.
Without going into what made this cigarette special, I really did not want to smoke any other 'regular' brand. My only other choice was to quit, which I did using nicotine patches.
I would never have chosen to quit smoking (despite my heart condition) if the manufacturer had not ceased production. So, my proposal is to simply halt the production and sale of tobacco and tobacco products in the U.S. My special cigarettes had been costing me up to $80/carton/~week which I now find useful for other purposes. For most people there would be significant and immediate (especially respiratory related) health benefits. I think that the production of tobacco products in the U.S. has been significantly diminished in the past few years, so why not simply prohibit tobacco now? Apologies to my dependable tobacconist...
I sense a political bias in the author, or perhaps he was just being provocative with his comments about women having the same amount of stress as men taking care of the home or nowadays working in the office. Very silly. The articled contained not a single occurrence of the word "competition". The article mentioned warfare, but not murder, as men fight for status and mates. Like other apes, humans have an average harem size greater than 1.0. Some men win big, some lose completely. Men will put in extra hours at the office to become a winner, not just a provider. That is how they attract mates. Women typically are less competitive and have less interest in being a winner. They care about providing. I've read in Evolutionary Psychology literature that in hunter-gatherer societies women provide on average 70% of the calories, while men go out hunting and proving their manliness. Castration might decrease a man's tendency to compete, and thus his stress, violence, and risk-taking behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLoved the article, great food for thought. Although castration is a bit too extreme (certainly for me), what about a drug that would temporarily supress the production of testosterone (an anti-Viagra if you will). Perhaps such a pill could improve lifespan of men. Additionally it could allow men to be romantic when convenient, but to supress it other times. If widely used it could also reduce the spread of STDs as well. I for one, would gladly take such a pill if it were safe and had minimal side effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot addressed directly in this article, but important I think: the role of grandmothers. It is my contention that, biologically speaking, children with grandmothers have been more likely to survive to reproductive age compared to children without grandmothers. Over the course of thousands of generations, longer-lived women have helped their daughters raise more children; thus women live longer because grandmothers are more useful than grandfathers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a message to everyone who is stating that if we would live forever we would still grow old and waisting health care. If we would be able to live forever, do you think we would get wrinkly and disseased? No, ofcourse not, the genetic code would be altered in such a way that we would stay young forever!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe whole idea of living longer isn't the idea of being old and crippled for longer, but being young and able for longer.
The author states that "male castration might be the ticket to a longer life" and that "castrated men [prisoners] were found to live on average 14 years longer than their uncastrated fellows". While this study hardly seems applicable to a wider group (how many of the criminals in the control group met violent ends, for example?), the take-away message, which the author does nothing to dispel, is that lower testosterone (short of castration) leads to longer life. Yet recent studies show just the opposite: Khaw, et al [1] conclude "In men, endogenous testosterone concentrations are inversely related to mortality due to cardiovascular disease and all causes"; while Tan and Salazar [2] state "Treatment relating to hypogonadism has relieved symptoms and improved the quality of life of many individuals. Epidemiological studies point toward an association with increased morbidity and mortality, with low testosterone states in ageing males." These studies certainly seem to be at odds with what the present article suggests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Kay-Tee Khaw, et al, "Endogenous Testosterone and Mortality Due to All Causes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer in Men: European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer in Norfolk (EPIC-Norfolk) Prospective Population Study", Circulation 116:2694-2701 (2007).
2. R Tan, J Salazar, "Risks of testosterone replacement therapy in ageing men", Expert Opinion on Drug Safety, Vol 3, No. 6; 599-606 (Nov 2004).
7. jtdwyer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou crab the Tiger (1950) by the Tail.
I'm to born that year, and vision the same.
Can we sustain the rate of population increase, and some of us getting older? I don't think so.
The increase in population is mere do to human interactive hands in the nature of it all.
One example is the "Haber Machine", the making fertilizer out of the thin Air.
This the "The alchemy of Air" process that fueled German Nazis, was actually invented by a Jewish man (pretty cynical) who himself had to flee Germany, despite his life changing contribution.
So as far as we can see, much of our sustainable life line is Artificial man made and might be linked to the destructive forces in the long run, Time will tell.
However , I personally believe that Universal laws of life itself will always have some unpredictable's in Store for Human kind, that throws Monkey Wrenches into the Mix leave us in disarray.
Similar to the 62 million plus lives lost to the Black plaque in the 1400 around Europe. Yes, we now know the cause and effect, but that does not mean something similar will sneaks up upon us, we can't figure out instantly despite how simple it will be found much later on, looking back.
Yes, our Ego's can be as large as the Universe when I read and observe some of us, than again in the end it will be only come down to this, BELIEVE IT OR NOT!
Maybe two X's are better than one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou would say men have more stress than women do, because you are a man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can also testify to the fact that being "castrated" and thus losing sex drive, is no great tragedy. Most women go through this experience at menopause, and I can tell you it's a blessing not to be ruled by sexual impulses. I'll bet you that if men could have their testes removed and replaced with something that looks and feels the same, some might jump at the chance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed. If part of aging is due to accumulated damage of our genes, then it stands to reason that if you have a backup copy by possessing a second X chromosome, then your chances of living longer are greater. I wonder what the age statistics are for intersex individuals with XXY, XXX or XYY compositions?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author is looking at the wrong historical records. Ages of ancient eunuchs might be hazy, but there was a time not so long ago where it was standard practice to castrate mental patients to make them easier to deal with these permanent residents of asylums. These records confirm the theory that castration is the easiest way to extend one's life for a variety of reasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(If you're the author feel free to contact me for references).
Oh, ignore my silly comment -- serves me right for reading only a dropquote and then commenting on the entire article!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf testosterone is indeed the cause of mens' shorter lifespans, I sure hope someone is working on testosterone blocking drugs that reduce the harmful effects of testosterone. If such a drug with low side effects was developed, it would be a huge success, by providng a temporary alternative to castration. I would take it myself, and I'm sure many other men would too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those men such as myself with overactive sex drives looking for a sex-drive reducing drug to reduce the everyday distractions from our high libidos, the drug may provide an extra benefit too.
Why, in an article titled "Why Women Live Longer" does the concluding paragraph talk only about men? For me, this article didn't even address why women live longer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy Women Live Longer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo an old grandpa like me the reason is obvious why women live longer. Evolution favored children whose grandma lived long enough to raise them while the parents were grubbing out an existence.
Regards, OldHenry
Why Women Live Longer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo an old grandpa like me the reason is obvious why women live longer. Evolution favored children whose grandma lived long enough to raise them while the parents were grubbing out an existence.
Regards, OldHenry
I suspect that a combination of the BMR and testosterone hypotheses hold the key. Interestingly, by increasing relative muscle density, testosterone tends to increase BMR -one reason my men clients lose weight more easily than women. As a teenager, I was extremely frustrated not to have the muscle development and heavier beard development of some of my peers. Now, at 57, I am frequently still mistaken as "younger" [to the great annoyance of my wife]... thus my beard on her insistence. Having had several NDE's, I believe that the physical body is simply a vehicle for the growth of the spiritual body, and consider death simply a metamorphosis to the next stage of growth as occurs in the butterfly larva. Postponing that is less important than creating health and growth in this stage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a scientist, I have to wonder how this prejudiced diatribe made it into a science magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is based on false premises presented as offensively as possible. There is no consensus by scientists who study aging, that stress is the only factor responsible for the shorter average life span of men. But since it is strongly linked to cardiovascular problems, which affect young men more than young women, it certainly must be considered. Furthermore, yes the workforce is much more stressful than home life, as attested by many women who have engaged in it over the last few decades. To cater to the additional women entering the work force, our society has also significantly minimized the psychological, social, and physical hardships that men use to endure. They are pampered and protected from every little conflict that arises.
Another false premise of this article, is that the “power to stay alive is the most essential proof of robustness”. Many people live into their 80’s and 90’s, riddled with arthritis, heart disease, periodic bouts of cancer, worn out joints, diabetes, etc., while other relatively healthy people die early deaths from a single unfortunate physiological anomaly. Longevity is a poor measure of overall health.
Thomas Kirkwood’s belittlement of the significantly superior strength and endurance of men over women, as simply enabling them to run faster and lift more weight, ignores that these attributes allow most men to engage in occupations, home maintenance, and recreational activities that far exceed the ability of even the strongest women.
Because estrogen helps protect women from cardiovascular disease during their fertile years, it helps extend their life expectancy a few more years (8% or 6-years) over men. The heart attacks that men have at a younger age than women, help diminish the overall life expectancy of their gender. Unfortunately, less sudden demises predispose women to lengthier diseases of miserable deterioration. In fact, their extra six years of life are often spent in nursing homes, dominated by women, not because of their longevity, but because of the nature of their aging and death.
Throughout life, women deal with emotional, psychological, physiological, and physical problems of their body’s’ own making that exceed those of men. The emotional, psychological, and memory ravages of PMS and menopause alone, are a burden to themselves and their families, and obstruct their careers. A host of uro-gential diseases fuels a large gynecological discipline, and has made hysterectomies and ovariectomies common.
Numerous autoimmune diseases, such as lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and a preponderance of allergies, afflict women by many-fold that of men and osteoporosis whittles away many women otherwise physically fit, giving them nine-times the number of broken legs, wrists, and hips that men get. In addition, they have a 30% higher incidence of health impairing obesity.
No, I would not hideously mutilate myself to have what women have, especially when it would deprive me of a part of me that gives me the great advantages and pleasure that I enjoy throughout the day and throughout my life.
I believe both genders should embrace and respect their myriad differences, but this does not mean I will mindlessly accept the false perceptions and the offensive propaganda of this article.
Because estrogen helps protect women from cardiovascular disease during their fertile years, it helps extend their life expectancy a few more years (8% or 6-years) over men. The heart attacks that men have at a younger age than women, help diminish the overall life expectancy of their gender. Unfortunately, less sudden demises predispose women to lengthier diseases of miserable deterioration. In fact, their extra six years of life are often spent in nursing homes, dominated by women, not because of their longevity, but because of the nature of their aging and death.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThroughout life, women deal with emotional, psychological, physiological, and physical problems of their body’s’ own making that exceed those of men. The emotional, psychological, and memory ravages of PMS and menopause alone, are a burden to themselves and their families, and obstruct their careers. A host of uro-gential diseases fuels a large gynecological discipline, and has made hysterectomies and ovariectomies common.
Numerous autoimmune diseases, such as lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and a preponderance of allergies, afflict women by many-fold that of men and osteoporosis whittles away many women otherwise physically fit, giving them nine-times the number of broken legs, wrists, and hips that men get. In addition, they have a 30% higher incidence of health impairing obesity.
No, I would not hideously mutilate myself to have what women have, especially when it would deprive me of a part of me that gives me the great advantages and pleasure that I enjoy throughout the day and throughout my life.
I believe both genders should embrace and respect their myriad differences, but this does not mean I will mindlessly accept the false perceptions and the offensive propaganda of this article.
As a scientist, I have to wonder how this prejudiced diatribe made it into a science magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is based on false premises presented as offensively as possible. There is no consensus by scientists who study aging, that stress is the only factor responsible for the shorter average life span of men. But since it is strongly linked to cardiovascular problems, which affect young men more than young women, it certainly must be considered. Furthermore, yes the workforce is much more stressful than home life, as attested by many women who have engaged in it over the last few decades. To cater to the additional women entering the work force, our society has also significantly minimized the psychological, social, and physical hardships that men use to endure. They are pampered and protected from every little conflict that arises.
Another false premise of this article, is that the “power to stay alive is the most essential proof of robustness”. Many people live into their 80’s and 90’s, riddled with arthritis, heart disease, periodic bouts of cancer, worn out joints, diabetes, etc., while other relatively healthy people die early deaths from a single unfortunate physiological anomaly. Longevity is a poor measure of overall health.
Thomas Kirkwood’s belittlement of the significantly superior strength and endurance of men over women, as simply enabling them to run faster and lift more weight, ignores that these attributes allow most men to engage in occupations, home maintenance, and recreational activities that far exceed the ability of even the strongest women.
Seems I remember from my Genetics class that women live longer than men because women have 2 X chromosomes and men have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome. I thought that was a basic premise of Genetics, but maybe it is only theory. Great article. Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEy, I like that! I'm really advocating healthy diet here and hopefully, my partner will take on a healthier food intake (and quit smoking), so we'll both grow old together. I definitely think that men are more predisposed to unhealthy diet and lifestyle thus the shorter life span.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article did, however, opened me for more possible reasons why women fare better in living longer than men. Testosterone could be the culprit, but then, it could be something more.
I'm particular taken by the study on castration. What is it that really made them live longer than non-castrated counterparts? Intriguing. Then perhaps my gay friends would find this one as a very good news. YEY!
One objective in the study of human health is identification of the specific physiological, behavioral, and environmental factors that appear to be causes of observed medical conditions. Alternative answers to why might be developed by considering how the observed traits and propensities could provide evolutionary survival benefits to the human race as a whole.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a hunter-gatherer society the benefits provided by the older members of the tribe might be different for men and women, while the costs of supplying them with nutrition would be similar. Hunting men would have acquired knowledge of physical and food resources over a wide geographical span, which would have increased with age and experience. The tribe would need at least one elder male who remembered the location of the last water supply after a rare 50 year drought, even though he might no longer be able to contribute significantly to the hunting ability of the tribe. In contrast, elderly women would be valuable in larger numbers. The effectiveness of each reproductively active mother in gathering tubers, fruits, small animals, and other passive nutrients would be increased by a grandmother staying at home to look after her young grandchildren. Thus women should live longer than men, for which evolution would have selected.
A somewhat similar discussion might be applied to the well established preference of children for fruits that are sweet tasting and are red, yellow, orange, or blue in color, in contrast to green vegetables. Fruit bearing plants depend for propagation of seeds on animals eating the fruits only after they are ripe, which is signaled by increased sweetness and a change from leaf-green color. Plants also discourage animal browsing on green leaves and immature fruits with a bitter taste. In some cases the bitter taste is accompanied by alkaloid toxicity. When the human mother is foraging, it is evolutionally favorable that her weakly supervised trailing children should choose to sample only sweet tasting and colorful plant offerings.
Wray H. Huestis, Stanford University
David L. Huestis, SRI International
That's a myth. Studies prove men have more pain tolerance. It's because men's bodies were built to take more pain as they had to hunt, whereas women needed to be acute to pain to protect their bodies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFalse. Studies show men, not women, have a higher pain tolerance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnytime men have an advantage in something the assumption is often that it must be due to discrimination. Why then, when women have an advantage we don't consider discrimination as a cause. Look at the funding differences for man's health versus woman's health. Maybe the difference is because society puts more importance on woman's lives and men are more often left to fend for themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAwesome! I totally agree with you. Why don't we look at society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould it be because men of a certain age like to gun their big mustang engines and burn rubber which leads to their vehicles cracking up? Could it be because some men love to play with guns? Could it be because a lot of men love to join the military and dive out of a helicopter during special ops missions? Could it be because a lot of men love to play football or rugby or ice hockey and get smacked in the head a lot? Could it be because a lot of men love to pump up their big muscles with turbo charged additives? Could it be because a lot of men love to have sex with anything that twitches? Could it be because a lot of men refuse to go to the Doctor because they're real tough guys?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy research indicates that women live longer than men because they are smaller. I looked at US men and women born in 1980 and found that life expectancy in men was lower by 0.5year/cm of increased height. Other studies have provided similar findings (see journal: Experimental Gerontology). Professor Miller found that when he compared men and women of the same height, they had about the same life span. Professor Rollo found that a comparison of male and female mice showed their difference in longevity was due to their difference in weight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason women live longer than men is that they don't use up their potential cell doubling capacity as fast. For example, most human cells have the capacity to duplicate themselves up to 70 times in a life time. Since men are larger and have more cells, they use up more cell doublings to produce their bigger bodies and to maintain them over their life span. We lose about 50 billion cells a day which need replacement. It is obvious that men will run out of potential cell doubling capacity faster than women. This is what researchers Maier, van Heemst and Westendorp found in 90 year olds. Shorter 90 year olds had more potential cell doublings left compared to taller 90 year olds and the shorter 90 year olds lived longer.
The above is supported by data from dogs which shows that smaller dogs live longer than bigger ones. It is common for smaller individuals to live longer than bigger ones within the same species according to gerontologist Alex Comfort (Scientific American) and many other researchers. Professor A. Bartke recently published a review paper in the journal, Gerontology, concluding that smaller body size is healthier and longer lived.
Another paper published a few months ago found that shorter men lived longer than taller ones in a Sardinian village, Villagrande Strisaili.
The findings are consistent with previous Sardinian studies and many longevity and mortality studies reported by Samaras, TT and associates over the last few decades. For more information, see http://www.humanbodysize.com
I didn't say anything about pain, but since you mention it, I don't know of any research to determine any differences in pain tolerance among the two genders, but women have been enduring discomfort and pain during pregnancy and childbirth for millennia, often without any form of anesthesia...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy name is John B and I am researching different sites with publications about people longevity and immortality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis site is interesting, and has a lot of reasonable considerations about people who wish to extend the life. Men’s hormones could contribute to longevity reducing or extending living time, but in the same time hormones are important supporting cells metabolism.
I guess that you are absolutely right regarding possible cause of female superior life extend related to giving birth to babies. Pregnancy teaches women to concentrate on internal processes and intuitively regulate cells proliferation having ability to repair later in some extend.
I was lucky to find several sites with similar ideas and one of it www.longlifestylecompany.com published a complete research of human’s immortality based on personal energy management. This site teaches people how to assess and improve energy of single cells in human’s body making people not only immortal, but constantly improving the energy. The site gives knowledge and practical online help for people who are going to change life to become immortal.
I was sceptical about it having in mind that all people are aging and finally dying. Several months ago I started implementing changes that were recommended on this site and found that it is a real deal, it works as promised giving a hope for success.
The female sex lives longer because she is endowed with extra micronutrient absorption capacity to sustain two lives - her own and that of her offspring both as a fetus and as a nursing infant. As both sexes age they loose some of their micronutrient absorption ability but the female has more to start with so she has more to sustain her as she ages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this