Why women live longer than man, that's unfair :-)

[AngelLestat]

more feminist, anti-male, propaganda...

Haven't yet heard of female miners getting killed in mine explosions, very few get killed in napalm or IED attacks, get the bends in industrial diving accidents trying to get a job done beyond the safety margins because otherwise a lot of other people suffer, etc. etc..

Sure, they may have a job where they're limited in the shade of their nail polish, but is that really hardship?...

What?? XD

I am not a girl. So what is that anti-male propaganda?? I am trying to be neutral here, we are in a science forum after all; Lests be based in evidence, stadistics, studies and reality please.

Haha miners?? lol, I remember that I had this same discussion long ago and people mention mining jobs in each sentence. Maybe the 30% of men are miners.

There always was gender discrimination in all the world, even in USA when they had the highest values of discrimination against afroamericans, even so they gain vote rights like many others before womens.

In the industrial revolution women had the worst jobs, like all works in textile or other factories with high chemical exposure, they also had all medical jobs like nurse, and they were in contact with all deceases.

The pay for the same job was always less for women than mens. That is also something that contribute to stress and mental illness.

Of course all that does not produce an instant death like some other men´s risk jobs, but they decrease life expentency by a lot. And they were very hard to prove.

I dint found the studie that I read time ago from W.H.O. which talk and disprove the fact of women/men aging like factor of men risky jobs.

But I found some similars: "I took the time to search them, so please take the time to do a quick read at least"

http://www.who.int/gender/documents/Genderworkhealth.pdf

http://www.who.int/gender/other_health/Gender,HealthandWorklast.pdf?ua=1

http://www.who.int/topics/womens_health/en/

http://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/csdh_media/wgekn_final_report_07.pdf?ua=1

http://www.who.int/gender/events/2011/iwd/decent_work_health/en/index4.html

There is also the fact that a baby girl has more chance to survive the birth and the first weaks after born than a boy. Where´s your "enviroment work theory" aplly into that?

This is not the case in some Africa countries or low development countries where the "value" of baby girls are almost zero to the father, many does not survive the first years, is also common that the father sold (exchange her for a goat) to another old mans.

Here there is some other links talking about testosterone.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/girls-immune-systems-rule-boys-drool-73250/

http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2014/01/28/exploring-how-gender-affects-the-immune-system/

Idolox: did not have to give birth to 12 children

Yeah thanks, I forget about this.

Give birth is not a very common death cause in development countries, but it is in every other place else.

Women not always have a doctor or a specialist to help them to give birth, they are very expose to disease or infection or the same pain and damage of the process.

And this is not like a few % of miners, or mens who has a risky job. What woman not give birth at least one child in her life?

Edited May 26, 2014 by AngelLestat

[Comrade Jenkens]

What woman not give birth at least one child in her life?

Eh? Many

For many reasons.

Especially in developed countries.

The main reason for the difference in lifespan is biological as in modern developed society men and women have a very similar quality of life. Just be glad the gap is generally only a couple of years as with many animals males die straight after reproducing!

[Sirrobert]

It's not a contest to see who has it the worst, but we're talking of people over 100 years old. At that time, in many places (and even in some places to this day), men had better access to healthcare and higher quality food, did not have to give birth to 12 children, and were not surrounded 24/7 by kids and elderly (also known as nature's Petri dishes) in cramped living quarters.

Sure, they were less likely to die in a mining accident or to get silicosis, but WW2 killed more civilians than soldiers, and violent deaths pale in comparison of the Spanish flu and other diseases.

In the end, men die younger than women in part for biological reasons (male pets usually have shorter lives than female ones, and they don't higher risk of dying at war, or a lesser exposition to nail polish remover), and in part because of a less healthy lifestyle (until a few decades ago, men drank, smoked and ate red meat a lot more than women). Comparing working in a field (which women also did) to working on a cotton mill 12h a day is a pointless exercise, and will not explain why upper-class women outlive their lazy-ass aristocratic husbands.

Now, given that our lifestyles have changed a lot, that gender differences are less pronounced, and healthcare improves, the biological role will become even more predominant. We also have to take into account males have a bonus because almost every drug is tested on males, and as a result, women are much more likely to have complications/secondary effects. This is slowly changing today, but it will take decades for thisdifference in healthcare quality to vanish.

I feel like I have to argue your example about nature's petri dishes.

Alot of people think that staying away from 'germs', as in, living as stirile as possible, will keep them healthy. But it is actually the oposite.

Being exposed to simple, annoying but not life threatning germs (the kind that Dettol tries to convince you are dangerous and that you should always disinfect your hands), is actually benificial. Asuming you are a healthy person (as in, your imune system is working fine), than those germs are nothing but a simple workout for your imune system. In laymens terms, it keeps your white bloodcells active.

In slightly more advanced terms: It keeps the cytokin ballance in a specific state, which boosts the imune system. This also means that kids growing up in a stirile envirioment run a higher risk of developing allergys (though that's not important for this point).

Basicly this means that, by training your imune system with simple, harmless germs, it will be better equiped to deal with germs that are actually dangerous

[Dunbaratu]

On a purely biological basis a male can have hundreds of children a year limited only to how many females he can impregnate.

A female can have at most 4 children every 3 years.

Evolution is driven by the ability of genes to be passed on and give healthy offspring as compared to other genes. Honestly with ratios like that I am surprised men don't drop dead at 40.

The reason it's not surprising that men don't die the instant they hit middle age is because evolution doesn't have precise individual control over specific one-at-a-time traits in just one gender in its "toolbox" of settings it can tweak. Genes are spaghetti code awful programming. (More evidence against intelligent design there, and in favor of a 'design' in which there is no foresight - only the ability to make gradual small modifications that seek local maxima rather than global maxima because they can't 'see into the future' to pick the better long-term solution.)

The spaghetti code mess of genetics means that often to get effect X, you get a lot more other effects along for the ride with it that are utterly unrelated. (i.e. trying to breed through artificial selection a tamer arctic fox resulted in a fox where the same gene that selected for tamer instincts also resulted in different fur color and a shorter snout shape more like a domestic dog. Again, genetic code is spaghetti code and none of it was set up for the benefit of logical sense.).

So if there's a species where evolution is selecting in favor genes that allow the mothers to live long enough to rear their children to maturity, the same genetic settings that allow that to occur can have the side effect of letting the fathers live longer than they otherwise would have too, even though evolution might not "care" about them, so to speak. Evolutionary pressures that may be "trying" (so to speak) to kill off the fathers at 40 while letting the mothers live to 55 might not have a good set of "switches" available that isolates the effects on the two sexes that sharply.

And on another unrelated point, the difference in lifespan between males and females is most pronounced in species where the males tend not to rear the offspring, but instead just leave the mothers after getting them pregnant. Species that mate and remain a couple together and share in the rearing of the offspring tend to have males living closer to the same age as females. Too high a ratio of deadbeat dads tends to be a detriment to male longevity.

[peadar1987]

Also, men are more likely to be overweight or obese than women: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/adult-overweightobesity-rate-by-gender/

Probably due to the fact that seemingly the most valued trait by society in a woman is looking pretty, rather than achieving things.

[phoenix_ca]

Also, men are more likely to be overweight or obese than women: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/adult-overweightobesity-rate-by-gender/

Seventy percent!?! My gods. The USA really does have a massive obesity epidemic.

[WinkAllKerb'']

yup and health model were slighty different around 1920, limit of the current pretty health model is when it turn to anorexia and other mirror individual image suffering.

Edited May 26, 2014 by WinkAllKerb''

[vger]

Probably due to the fact that seemingly the most valued trait by society in a woman is looking pretty, rather than achieving things.

Only because being pretty is viewed as the most efficient way of achieving things...

[ZetaX]

The reason it's not surprising that men don't die the instant they hit middle age is because evolution doesn't have precise individual control over specific one-at-a-time traits in just one gender in its "toolbox" of settings it can tweak. Genes are spaghetti code awful programming. (More evidence against intelligent design there, and in favor of a 'design' in which there is no foresight - only the ability to make gradual small modifications that seek local maxima rather than global maxima because they can't 'see into the future' to pick the better long-term solution.)

The spaghetti code mess of genetics means that often to get effect X, you get a lot more other effects along for the ride with it that are utterly unrelated. (i.e. trying to breed through artificial selection a tamer arctic fox resulted in a fox where the same gene that selected for tamer instincts also resulted in different fur color and a shorter snout shape more like a domestic dog. Again, genetic code is spaghetti code and none of it was set up for the benefit of logical sense.).

So if there's a species where evolution is selecting in favor genes that allow the mothers to live long enough to rear their children to maturity, the same genetic settings that allow that to occur can have the side effect of letting the fathers live longer than they otherwise would have too, even though evolution might not "care" about them, so to speak. Evolutionary pressures that may be "trying" (so to speak) to kill off the fathers at 40 while letting the mothers live to 55 might not have a good set of "switches" available that isolates the effects on the two sexes that sharply.

And on another unrelated point, the difference in lifespan between males and females is most pronounced in species where the males tend not to rear the offspring, but instead just leave the mothers after getting them pregnant. Species that mate and remain a couple together and share in the rearing of the offspring tend to have males living closer to the same age as females. Too high a ratio of deadbeat dads tends to be a detriment to male longevity.

You are arguing that biology does not easily allow for men to have shorter lifes. That may be, but you need to start earlier: why should certain genes even get an advantage from dying earlier¿ There probably is no such advantage for men (there might be for women due to their more limited fertility), thus what you argue against is nonsensical to begin with.

[Sirrobert]

You are arguing that biology does not easily allow for men to have shorter lifes. That may be, but you need to start earlier: why should certain genes even get an advantage from dying earlier¿ There probably is no such advantage for men (there might be for women due to their more limited fertility), thus what you argue against is nonsensical to begin with.

Well in a direct example, there are in fact genes that are specificly there to kill the cell they are part off.

If you stop looking at it there, it is the most anti-evolutionairy gene that could possibly exist. What kind of organism would have a system encoded in it that would kill off the organism?

But those individual cells are not the organism, instead they are part of a much bigger organism. So if the cell is comprimised, for example at risk of developing into a cancer cell, the cell will sacrifise itself for the survival of the greater organism.

Now I have no clue if it IS the case here or not, there is no reason there can't be such a system in place for the species as a whole, where individual organisms sacrifies themselves for the survival of the species.

You only have to look at bees for the example. If they sting a big target, they will die. But in stinging, they might ensure that that big target does not destroy the entire hive

[ZetaX]

No, there is almost definitely no advantage to kill male humans. They can spread their genes (almost) as well as younger ones, without the need of waiting 10-14 years for maturity. The bees you mention are impotent to begin with, giving their lifes to protect the queen that shares a lot of genes with them. Advantages of self-sacrifice exist, even in mammals, but to get one on the level of suicide due to age you would need an active evolutionary factor causing it. The mere theoretical possibility of such a thing to exist is not an argument in favor of it, but just the lack of this specific counter-argument, which I did not use.

[vger]

No, there is almost definitely no advantage to kill male humans. They can spread their genes (almost) as well as younger ones, without the need of waiting 10-14 years for maturity. The bees you mention are impotent to begin with, giving their lifes to protect the queen that shares a lot of genes with them. Advantages of self-sacrifice exist, even in mammals, but to get one on the level of suicide due to age you would need an active evolutionary factor causing it. The mere theoretical possibility of such a thing to exist is not an argument in favor of it, but just the lack of this specific counter-argument, which I did not use.

There's somewhat of a biological logic to men being expendable.

Unless we can prove that Wilma was out there helping Fred to get some mammoth burgers, this sort of makes sense. The most dangerous job in preindustrial civilization would have to be hunting. And as far as we can tell, in most cases, that was the man's job. So even without taking wars into account, men were more likely to get killed.

How does this apply to biology? In a world where death rates are high among children, reproduction needed to happen as frequently as possible. Women can only give birth every nine months, so they have to live at least long enough for that. Now picture a 'tribe' where nearly all the women were wiped out, but none of the men. Chances are, that tribe is going to die off. Do the reverse and have only a handful of men with a bunch of women. The odds of restoring their population is considerably higher.

Just going by the numbers (not accounting for inbreeding issues, for the sake of simplicity):

1 man with 10 women can produce 10 children every 9 months.

10 men with 1 woman can only produce 1 child every 9 months.

In order to sustain a population in desperate times, more women are needed than men.

Edited May 26, 2014 by vger

[ZetaX]

So what¿ You just argued for men being more expendable. That is not even close to implying that there is an active (!) interest for the genes to kill themselves off. This can and will only happen if those genes get distributed more by that, not less. You will have to find such a mechanism before you can argue that way.

[vger]

So what¿ You just argued for men being more expendable. That is not even close to implying that there is an active (!) interest for the genes to kill themselves off. This can and will only happen if those genes get distributed more by that, not less. You will have to find such a mechanism before you can argue that way.

Are you here to discuss or just here to win?

You said there is no advantage to kill male humans.

I gave an example of where there is at least LESS of an advantage to killing females.

I never said you were wrong.

[Dodgey]

You could get that apparent affect in nature though. Take the black widdow, the female kills the male shortly after mating, if you were to save the male you would discover that he wouldn't live as long or as healthily as the female, this is because natural selection hasn't had a chance to weed out the traits which limit long life, they mate and die too early in their life for this to happen. Now i know it's not the same thing, but the general affect could be looked at as similar, just food for thought.

Edit:

Vegr, that was a red hearing you must see that, you never said he was wrong but you never addressed his points.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Dodgey

[vger]

Vegr, that was a red hearing you must see that, you never said he was wrong but you never addressed his points.

Actually the information you just added was where I was going with it. I figured the basics of natural selection were a given and I didn't have to elaborate on it further. The tone Zetax came back with was what had me scratching my head.

I also didn't know Zetax was looking for a gene that specifically went out of its way to kill men. The only point I was making is that there isn't (unless it has managed to develop in the past couple thousand years... highly unlikely) an inherent advantage to males living longer, when most of them end up getting killed.

[ZetaX]

Are you here to discuss or just here to win?

You said there is no advantage to kill male humans.

I gave an example of where there is at least LESS of an advantage to killing females.

I never said you were wrong.

Then I misunderstood you there because you quoted me and then sounded like you disagree. And yes, as said above, I was talking to the previous person who argued for such a gene.

[Dodgey]

Yay misunderstandings all around. So as it appears that we are all in agreement what is the point we are trying to discuss. I'm a bit confused.

[vger]

I think we got it covered with plenty of different angles. The only thing we don't have is determining the smoking gun. But good luck to anyone on the planet who tries to do that, even with lots of time and money.

[AngelLestat]

All are giving a lot of thought from the evolution approach, but this is simple.

Men are important in the offspring survival, but not as important like women. So is natural that it would be a difference in life span, but not so large, only 7 years.

What matters is not how many years a women live, is that they dont die meanwhile they are breeding their childs. Given that reason, they need an stronger inmunity system. And this stronger inmunity system provide them with longer life expentency. Thats it.

How we can measure that biological difference? In lower levels of testosterone and the fact that womens had 2 XX cromosome which reduce the chance of get a fail copy.

So get google/bing or wherever, and search testosterone and life span.

Eh? Many

For many reasons.

Especially in developed countries.

The main reason for the difference in lifespan is biological as in modern developed society men and women have a very similar quality of life. Just be glad the gap is generally only a couple of years as with many animals males die straight after reproducing!

I know that, but what I wanna said is that if you took the average of childs for women in her life span (worldwide), you would see that you have an average of 2,5 childs for women. But in development coutries the average is 0 to 2, but there is not a big risk in development coutries in the give birth process. On the contrary there is a increase risk in poor countries, and the birth rate average for each women in those countries is 4 to 7. So there is a lot of risk of mother mortality in those places.

Also, men are more likely to be overweight or obese than women: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/adult-overweightobesity-rate-by-gender/

But men from birth had more active lives (physical exercise) than women, becouse ever their games are more physical. In the first years is when this is more important becouse our body is in plain development (lungs, muscles, etc), this works against women, becouse is know how important is the exercise in health.

Only because being pretty is viewed as the most efficient way of achieving things...

I like that sentence. Pretty means healthy and capable to survive.

Is not weird that some of the most pretty girls in MMA are the ones that are in top positions. (with cyborg exeption becouse she took a lot of steroids in her life.)

Unless we can prove that Wilma was out there helping Fred to get some mammoth burgers, this sort of makes sense. The most dangerous job in preindustrial civilization would have to be hunting. And as far as we can tell, in most cases, that was the man's job. So even without taking wars into account, men were more likely to get killed.

There is a misconception in that sentence product of the age we live or we learn from the close history.

Why you think that women did not hunt?

There are many proff that show that women hunt in conjuntion with men in the age stone. If this would not be true in those times, maybe now we would not be here.

Early times was not so easy, groups were not so numerous, so if you wanna try get food for winter, you need all the hands that you could get.

Women not always was the "inferior being", the god figure of those times was a pregnant women (in all euroasia continent)

What change that? I would said agroculture, Religion (Christianity main responsable) in conjunction with the OIL age. This give us a lot of energy and not need of extra hands.

Just going by the numbers (not accounting for inbreeding issues, for the sake of simplicity):

1 man with 10 women can produce 10 children every 9 months.

10 men with 1 woman can only produce 1 child every 9 months.

In order to sustain a population in desperate times, more women are needed than men.

Yeah, maybe that is another way to see it.

[Sirrobert]

So what¿ You just argued for men being more expendable. That is not even close to implying that there is an active (!) interest for the genes to kill themselves off. This can and will only happen if those genes get distributed more by that, not less. You will have to find such a mechanism before you can argue that way.

There is however, also no active interest in genes that keep them alive longer.

But there is for women, because they are more needed to keep the tribe intact

Edited May 27, 2014 by Sirrobert