Why Women Live Longer Than Men

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.

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Related:

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Why Men At Midlife Are Happier Than Women

Comments

[dadw5boys]

Women live longer than men because women have done most of the cooking. Plus they externalize their problems by talking while men like to think out thier problems instead.

Women should be less harsh on men by the way,

Without men you would still be washing clothes on a rock!

Men are the inventors!

[cricket]

women live longer than men because women don't accumulate lot of belly fat. belly fat causes heart disease.

[davedave]

that's how women live longer than men, not why....

d

[PerryWhite]

I always thought that women live several years longer than men was to offset the time they spend at cashiers looking for pennies in the bottoms of their purses.

[OtayPanky]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have understood that the incidence of "male" diseases has been rising rapidly among women in the last 30 years or so.

And (again from what I've read) a lot of that is thought to come from the fact that women have been experiencing more of what was traditionally the lifestyle of men - with its peculiar set of darwinian stresses - than before.

So...is the disease gap (and thus ultimately the death stats) closing between the sexes in our society right now?

And if so, is it because the life experience gap is closing as well?

[joebiz]

I agree with OtayPanky (that Lil' Rascal).

As more women play more and greater roles in society, and they should, many are experiencing the drawbacks of abhorent vices that men have abused over the ages: alcohol use and abuse, tobacco smoking, higher stress jobs and career burn-out, drug addictions, multiple sexual partners (the propensity to catch a STD); and the all inclusive modern Western diet. A diet laden high in fats, artificial and chemical preservatives, cholesterol, and heavily sugar or carb-centered, has not aided men or women in the pursuit of a healthy, balanced life.

A vegan or vegetable centered diet will help in the combating of preventable diseases. And a social shift in reducing many of the vices, of which, are social and "manufactured" mentioned above.

I would go as far as even say that a degraded physical and natural environment (air, water, and soil pollution) has declined the life expectancy in humans indirectly by attacking the human body at tissue and even cellular level.