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Why Female Mammals Live Longer

Once you've been married, you'll understand why. ;)

Seriously, I'm of the opinion it's more a case of genetics than anything else.

You can probably find a lot of information on the 'net or at the public library. Or better yet, the next time you have a doctor's visit, ask.

I think it is because man was first on Earth longer than woman, then after man came woman. It may be the same with animals too.

Female mammals live longer because females look after themselves more and are not as rough. Also females are much better than males even with humans.

I reckon it's because nine times out of ten, the female will eat the male, or maybe that's just Spiders? The male probably sacrifices himself too to keep the female safe, or maybe there's a disease out there we don't know about yet that males are prone too.

Sorry, this is more of an opinion then an answer :I

This is a great answer with a number of elements of truth. The gist is that male animals, (not just mammals), generally have the intense reproductive drive that results in a series of insults that lead to early death. Injuries due to fighting, chance taking, territorial disputes, protecting/securing mate(s) and the fact that these drives can lead to the male focusing so heavily on mating and reproduction that he neglects his own well being (many male animals do not eat during rut/breeding)...or they get eaten by their prospective mate (pre or post mating). To make matters worse all the strutting, posturing, "look a me"ing, worrying, practicing to be the alpha, fighting to be the alpha and oft times growing beautiful plumage to strut for prospective girls makes males a target for hat/clothing makers and even precludes hiding from predators. I'd warn you to be very careful gentlemen but the truth is...

most of you won't.

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9y ago
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12y ago

First it depends on the type of male, Usually men attend to smoke more pot and do more drugs then women. Women are probaly more edjucated because more women watch Opra! Well and of course Opra is GENIOUS!!! And well yaa more woman care about there weight so they attnd to be more healthy than men! And remember DONT EVER EVER STARVE YOUR SELF!!!!!!!

Well we must be more educated in spelling I found 8 misspelled words above

all kidding aside (who's kidding?) My opinion only of course is that , a lot of men are kind of lazy ,I have three boy (now men) and if they do not have to do nothing that's exactly what they do "nothing"where most women I've come across in 30 years working in the medical field I've seen women working so much harder and running the extra mile than the men'

As far as Oprah being a genius,she is smart but no genius she does her home work studies her subject and subjects and also has many brains helping her along the way

she has never balanced a check book,why should she I couldn't balance her check book could you?Women live longer yes (still) but now are having to carry the stress more,and heart problems are more frequent than ever with us so that could change but,there's another interesting factor our mothers tend to teach and brain wash us early and spoil their sons I know I did,so yes blame mom it's alright we are women

.we are strong. thank you if you read this maybe you have learned something if not you learned how to spell lol

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13y ago

Normally...females live longer than male because males don't show their emotions and that causes them to be more stressed.

Edit: That is a terrible answer.

Women generally outlive men, and researchers are exploring the reasons why.

Evolution may play a role, researchers note in the journal Human Nature. But other factors also work in women's favor, and it's possible for anyone -- male or female -- to work toward a longer, healthier life.

First, take a look at the latest snapshot of U.S. life expectancy. In 2004, the most recent year for which such statistics are available, life expectancy from birth was 77.9 years. In 2004, life expectancy for U.S. women was 5.2 years longer than men.

Women don't just outlive men in the U.S. In April, researchers in England predicted that 2006 may be the year in which women outlive men all over the world, even in the world's poorest countries.

Vying for AttentionHere's the short version of the study, published in Human Nature: Male animals often have to compete for female attention -- witness the male peacock's showy tail and the male moose's battle-ready antlers; vying against other suitors can be risky.

The University of Michigan's Daniel Kruger, PhD, and Randolph Nesse, MD, wrote the paper. They argue that men are much more likely than women to engage in risky and sometimes violent behavior, ultimately raising men's Death Rate.

More men than women die in car accidents, other types of accidents, homicides, and suicides, the researchers note. They add that in the U.S., the gender gap in death rates peaks in young adulthood and is mainly due to behavior.

Daredevil Appeal?Kruger and Nesse took a big-picture look at how evolution may contribute to male-female death rates.

They don't claim that all men engage in risky behavior to impress women, or that all women look at daredevils and think, "I'd like him to father my children." They also don't dismiss women's health risks.

However, Kruger and Nesse note that men, particularly those experiencing uncertainty or deprivation, "may develop riskier life strategies, leading to higher mortality rates." Of course, many men may not act that way when facing uncertainty or harsh conditions.

The male-female gap in death rates may be a sign of male-male competition in a society, the researchers also suggest.

Researchers Examine Role of Risky Behavior in Life Expectancy(continued)

Safer Childbirth"Up until very recently in human terms, life expectancy for men was greater than for women," Carol J. Hogue, PhD, MPH, tells WebMD.

Hogue is a professor of maternal and child health and of epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.

"I'm not talking about elderly people and whether the next year they're going to be alive," she explains. "I'm talking about the average number of years lived for a baby born. That's life expectancy at birth." Kruger and Nesse's study tracked death rates, not life expectancy from birth.

Why did women overtake men in life expectancy? "The difference is maternal mortality," Hogue says. Maternal mortality includes women's deaths during or associated with childbirth.

Maternal mortality improved in the developed world in the early 20th century and followed suit in most of the developing world, "although there are still areas in the developing world that have very high rates of maternal mortality," Hogue says.

Risky BehaviorIt's "certainly true," Hogue says, that "males are much more at risk of violent death and associated with taking risks." She says "that may be part of the explanation as to why life expectancy at birth is now better for women than men."

"The major killer in early life for women was maternal mortality, and that has been tamed considerably, whereas the major killer for men is violence and accidents, and that has not gone down as dramatically as childbirth deaths have gone down," Hogue says.

Women shouldn't take their longer life expectancy for granted. The 2004 gender gap in U.S. life expectancy was the smallest it's been since 1946. If women continue to adopt unhealthy habits like smoking, the gap may narrow further.

"Also, now that obesity is such a major player in life expectancy, I don't think we know what impact that's going to have," Hogue says. She adds that some scientists have theorized that women may have greater genetic protection against premature death.

Boosting Your Life ExpectancyMen and women can take steps toward a longer, healthier life.

"You can change your life expectancy if you start today exercising, eating right, reducing stress through one or another stress-reduction methods like meditation, avoiding risky behavior, wearing your seatbelt, not cutting people off in traffic," Hogue says.

"In other words, you have your own destiny in your own hands, up to a point," she says.

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6y ago

Men in their late teens and 20s go through something called "testosterone storm." The levels of the hormone can be quite high and changeable, and that can induce some pretty dangerous behavior among young men. They don't wear their seatbelts; they drink too much alcohol; they can be aggressive with weapons and so on and so forth. These behaviors lead to a higher death rate.

Another area where we see higher death rates among men is among the depressed - especially older men. If they attempt suicide, they are more likely to succeed than women.

Overall, about 70% of the variation around average life expectancy - [just over 80 for women and just over 75 for men in the U.S.] - is probably attributable to environmental factors - your behaviors and your exposures. Probably only 30% is due to genetics.

But, in general, there are maybe three things men do worse than women. They smoke a lot more. (That gender gap is fortunately shrinking, since men are smoking less and less.) They eat more food that leads to high cholesterol. And, perhaps related to that, men tend not to deal with their stress as well as women. They may be more prone to internalizing that stress rather than letting go - though that's a fairly controversial point. Nonetheless, stress plays a very important role in cardiovascular disease.

~Time

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6y ago

The body cells of women are designed to live long but not in the case of man. But the men body is much stronger than women. since the cells of women have more life time they live longer than men.
The classical answer is 'because women don't have to put up with their wives.'

The real answer is more like, "Women get rid of stress more easily than men by crying, yelling, and so on. It is well known that stress can shorten your life span. Men, on the other hand, often keep their stress 'bottled up', and often do not 'get it out of their systems'.
Because women nag the men to death! OK...I believe it is because the women take better care of themselves. Men rarely go to the doctor. Men won't eat right when single but when married the woman cooks and takes care of him. A single man will not have the daily at home interaction a married man has so he does get lonely. That's my answer.

One important reason is the big delay - and advantage - women have over men in terms of cardiovascular disease, like heart attack and stroke. Women develop these problems usually in their 70s and 80s, about 10 years later than men, who develop them in their 50s and 60s. For a long time, doctors thought the difference was due to estrogen. But studies have shown that this may not be the case, and now we know that giving estrogen to women post-menopause can actually be bad for them.

One reason for that delay in onset of cardiovascular disease could be that women are relatively iron-deficient compared to men - especially younger women, those in their late teens and early 20s - because of menstruation. Iron plays a very important part in the reactions in our cells that produce damaging free radicals, which glom onto cell membranes and DNA, and may translate into aging the cell. In fact, in our diets, red meat is the main source of iron, and lack of iron is probably one major reason that being vegetarian is healthy for you. There was a very good study looking at the intake of red meat and Heart disease in Leiden in the Netherlands: in regions where people didn't eat red meat, those populations had half the rate of heart attack and stroke compared to the populations that did eat red meat.

Another more complicated possibility [for women's longevity] is that women have two X chromosomes, while men have one. (Men have an X and a Y.) When cells go through aging and damage, they have a choice in terms of genes - either on one X chromosome or the other. Consider it this way: you have a population of cells, all aging together. In some cells, the genes on one X chromosome are active; in other cells, by chance, the same set of genes, with different variations, are active on the other X chromosome. Don't forget, we all have the same genes - the reason we differ is because we express different variations of those genes, like different colors of a car. Now, if one set of variations provides a survival advantage for the cells versus another, then the cells with the advantage will persist while the other ones will die off, leaving behind more cells with the genes on the more advantageous X chromosome. So, in women, cells can perhaps be protected by a slightly better variation of a gene on the second X chromosome. Men don't have this luxury and don't get this choice.

It's very unclear [how big an effect that could have]. I've seen men who have done horrendous damage to themselves over time with smoking and drinking and who still get to 100 and older - though that's very, very rare. They might have the right combination of some really special genetic variations that we call "longevity enabling genes" - which we're on the mad hunt for. Meanwhile other individuals may do everything right and only make it into their 80s. That may be because they have what we call "disease genes," some genetic variations that are relatively bad for them. Now some of these [disease genes] may be on the X chromosome, [meaning that women who have the second X chromosome with which to compensate, would have an advantage]. But it's really still a very complicated puzzle to tease out.

[There are a few other reasons that men die earlier in life more often than women.] Men in their late teens and 20s go through something called "testosterone storm." The levels of the hormone can be quite high and changeable, and that can induce some pretty dangerous behavior among young men. They don't wear their seatbelts; they drink too much alcohol; they can be aggressive with weapons and so on and so forth. These behaviors lead to a higher death rate.

Another area where we see higher death rates among men is among the depressed - especially older men. If they attempt suicide, they are more likely to succeed than women.

Overall, about 70% of the variation around average life expectancy - [just over 80 for women and just over 75 for men in the U.S.] - is probably attributable to environmental factors - your behaviors and your exposures. Probably only 30% is due to genetics. And that's very, very good news. There's so much we can do. Most of us should be able to get into our late 80s. What's more, to get to older ages, like the centenarians, you are necessarily compressing the time you're sick to the end of your life. It's not a case where the older you get, the sicker you get. It's very much the case that the older you get, the healthier you've been.

But, in general, there are maybe three things men do worse than women. They smoke a lot more. (That gender gap is fortunately shrinking, since men are smoking less and less.) They eat more food that leads to high cholesterol. And, perhaps related to that, men tend not to deal with their stress as well as women. They may be more prone to internalizing that stress rather than letting go - though that's a fairly controversial point. Nonetheless, stress plays a very important role in cardiovascular disease.


Because they're not married to women. No nagging spouse.

Actually, a simple reason for men dieing before their wives, is that usually, men marry women younger than them. This could be due to men wanting their wives to outlive themselves, to take care of their final arrangements. Or maybe just because they like them younger.

I got a good explanation from a blog, as follows:

1. Women have been designed by nature to live long enough not only to look after their kids, but look after the children's kids - just in case.

This is reinforced by the menopause. To ensure that a mother is strong enough to look after her own kids and be able to look after her grandchildren, nature has created a point from which women can't have babies.

2. The female hormones are natures way of helping women live longer. Men on the other hand are designed to run around hunting and gathering and chasing females. As they have tended to play very little part in bringing up children, evolution has not seen any need to give them chemicals to help them live longer.

In modern times men typically suffer more stress as they feel a drive to provide fro their family. They become more prone to unhealthy choices and the body being worn down by stress and bad diets further reduces their chances of living longer.

Over the years as women have increased their rates of smoking, drinking and unhealthy diets, the gap at which women have tended to outlive men has reduced from around 10 years to just 5 years.

ALTERNATIVE ANSWER

There is no proof that women are 'supposed' to live longer. Genetically, men and women appear to be equal.

More often men lead unhealthier lifestyle, undergo more stress, smoke and drink more and are victims of war.

If you look at the diagram that you have probably been shown at school, then you can see that there are far less men in the category 80+ than women. That has a lot to do with the world war one and world war two, where those men lost their lives.

Yes, women live longer, but not because they are genetically better. In health promoting environment and with healthy food both men and women live an equally long life.

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14y ago

females tend to live longer than males

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12y ago

females live longer than males

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11y ago

Because they do less.

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Q: Who lives longer male or female and why?
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