Eli5: Why do women live longer than men on average, even among the older population like supercentenarians?
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I have this question too, even in the womb, the female fetus sirvival rate is more than male ones!
Not the same answer everywhere, but in much of the world (East Europe and Asia, or 1950’s stay at home mums America), the answer is drinking alcohol, where
1. Drinking is a thing many more of one gender do than the other because it’s the norm in that place and at that time,
2. Alcohol is a slow acting liver poison that kills humans three decades prematurely.
It’s important not just to look at norms today but also at norms in the past who would have affected the people alive today.
In many places this is so rampant that it heavily skews the older generation surviving population towards either men or women. As it kills only after people are done having babies, it doesn’t tend to skew subsequent generations.
Both Y chromosome and testosterone is not great. We tried with mice by replacing hormones and turned out genetic female mice with female hormones lived most and male mice with male hormones lived worst. For details listen from 30 minute onwards or all of https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-get-old-and-can-aging-be-reversed-20220727/
Because how many women have you seen jam a roman candle up their ass in the back of a pickup truck while shotgunning a beer at 60 miles an hour in the dark?
Men take bigger risks: “Hold my beer and watch this” is almost a singularly male sport.
Most physically dangerous careers are male dominated.
Men are more likely to die of heart conditions, because men are terrible at actually going to doctors when something’s wrong.
Thus, more men die young than women driving the average down.
I have never met a woman who has gone to the top of a hill, wrapped a barrel in fireworks, and proceed to get in the barrel while their friends light the fireworks and give it a push down the hill. This contributes to at least 5 extra years of life expectancy
Testosterone probably plays a role.
It is toxic, damaging the cardiovascular system, liver, and brain.
It also encourages aggressive behaviour and risk taking.
Men tend to suffer a higher rate of cardiovascular disease than women.
Another factor is that men are taller, heavier, and tend to have a bit higher metabolic rate than women. This causes more strain on the system and lead men to age faster.
Men tend to be be more likely to be killed in accidents than women. This is for complex reasons. One is probably cultural since men are overrepresented in the most dangerous jobs. Another reason is behavioral, as high testosterone can cause impatience and impulsive behavior leading to a higher rate of fatal vehicular accidents. ( Women are more likely to be involved in minor, fender-bender type accidents but men get in more serious accidents)
Men are more likely to die by suicide. This is probably mostly for cultural reasons
Men are more likely to succumb to drug addiction. This includes tobacco which tends to chop at least a decade off one’s life expectancy, on average.
Men are more likely to be incarcerated, which itself is a predictor or risk factor for many causes of death, even after being released.
Men are more likely to die in wars, or from homicide.
I could be wrong, but apparently testosterone is a bastard that through some process causes aging and since women have less testosterone they will tend to live longer. Men who lose their ability to make testosterone tend to live a bit longer.
Testosterone wrecks the human body. When young it promotes growth, but later on in life testosterone acts to interfere with immune responses and causes other problems.
Studies have found that eunuch tend to have less health issues later on in life vs uncastrated men.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/castration-men-live-longer-eunuchs-studied-korean-records/story?id=17310420
Men are also short one set of chromosome.
The Y chromosome doesn’t encode for outside of determining if you form male sexual organs and features. Where as X chromosome have far more information.
So if you just got one copy of X and your copies is corrupted, you are going to have a bad time
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