Women in the industrialized world are still living five to 10 years longer than men. Out of the people who are over 100 years old, 85 percent are women. So why are women living longer than men?
One reason is the advantage that women have over men in terms of stroke, heart attack and cardiovascular disease. The majority of women develop these problems in their 70s and 80s, almost 10-20 years later than men. Men develop these problems in their 50s and 60s. For years, doctors believed that estrogen was the big difference, but studies have shown that this is not the case. Now we know that giving estrogen to women after menopause can be bad for them.
Women tend to be more iron deficient than men due to menstruation, which may be the reason for the delay in onset in cardiovascular disease. Damaging free radicals, which cling onto cell membranes and DNA, may translate into the aging cell and these free radicals are produced in reactions that require iron. So because women are iron deficient, they are not producing free radicals until later in life that cause them to age. This contributes to the fact that vegetarians live longer than those who eat meat. Meat eaters, especially red meat has a lot of iron, and so that lack of iron in vegetarian diets may contribute to the decrease in the amount of free radicals, thus slowing down the aging process. In a study of heart disease versus red meat, they looked at regions of the world that didn’t eat red meat and they had half the stroke and heart attack rate when compared with populations that did eat red meat.
Another possibility for women’s longevity is that women have two X chromosomes and men only have one. Women’s cells, when they go through aging, have a choice in terms of genes – one X chromosome or the other. Think of it this way – there is big pool of genes in women that can all age together. We all have genes, with some genes active on one strand, and others active on the other. There are variations on these genes that are expressed differently, which is the reason why we have different eye color, hair color, etc. So if one set of cells provides a survival advantage, then the other set of cells act as a backup for the other. Essentially, as we age, so do our cells, but in women they have the same cells, so even if some die on one X chromosome, there are backups on the other chromosome that keep them alive longer. So in women, because they have the same X chromosome with slight variations, they are protected by this variation. Men don’t have this luxury because their genes are different.
These are only a couple of theories why women live longer than men. It’s unclear what the exact reason is. It could be a combination of environmental factors, genetics and behavior. But whatever the reason, the fact is that women do indeed live longer than men.