Longevity by Jennifer Cox We’ve explored countless lifestyle factors and examined them to see how they a ect our overall longevity…everything from employment and marital status to chocolate and wine consumption. Now we’re looking at the connection between longevity and gender. Gender is not something we can biologically change. It’s a proven fact that women live longer than men and unfortunately, for the males reading this article, there’s not much that they can do about it. But the question remains: why do women live longer thanmen? Everywhere in the world, women live longer thanmen. roughout all phases of life, women survive better as infants, adolescents, adults and into old age. According to nextavenue.org, at similar ages, men in the U.S. are 60 per cent more likely to die of heart disease, 40 per cent more likely to die of cancer, more than twice as likely to die from accidents and 20 per cent more likely to die of chronic lung disease. In fact, of the top 10 causes of death, women die more frequently of only one − Alzheimer’s disease. Here are some quick facts: e average American man will live to age 76, according to the latest CDC gures, while the average woman in America will live to age 81 (TIME), and a woman’s extra years tend to be healthy ones. eWorld Health Organization’s HALE index, which calculates the number of years a man or woman can expect to live without a major disease or injury, nds that American men can look forward to 67 healthy years, while American women will enjoy 70 years of “full health.” e Canadian numbers are similar to these. Recent research purports that sex chromosomes a ect longevity more than hormones (nextavenue.org). Dr. Dena Dubal of the University of California San Francisco has explored sex di erences in longevity using mice that had been genetically engineered to have male reproductive organs (and hormones), regardless of whether they had the normal male complement of one X and one Y chromosome or, instead, had two X chromosomes like females normally do. Other mice in Dubal’s study were engineered to develop female reproductive parts, whether they had the normal two X chromosomes or an X and Y pair like normal males. e surprising result was that having two X chromosomes led to longer mouse life, regardless of whether their reproductive sex was male or female. is can help us understand why there is a di erence in life expectancies of men and women. Psychology Today suggested that these chromosomes are at the core of what helps females ght o illness and disease, thereby helping them live longer lives than men. e female of every species outlives the male with very few exceptions, and this is because of the two “X” chromosomes that women have, which provides them with a backup when a genetic mutation occurs on one of the genes. Men, however, only have a single “X” chromosome to express all their genes, whether damaged or not. Perhaps this genetic reserve allows a greater repertoire of e ective neural, endocrine, and immune responses to potentially deleterious environmental demands, the article put forth. TIME also stated that a 2013 review in the International Journal of Endocrinology found evidence that estrogen can prevent the kind of DNA damage that leads to disease and can help maintain normal, healthy cell function. Ladies, it looks like we may just have the upper hand when it comes to our lifespans. ere are still loads of factors that are in our control (making healthy food choices, staying physically active, managing stress, etc.), but when it comes down to our genders, women are just wired to live longer. So, enjoy the time you have and make the most of those longer, healthier years. Longevity & Gender 42 | www.snowbirds.org
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