Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Why Women Live Longer Than Men

Why Women Live Longer Than Men (from Wikipedia): Women tend to have a lower mortality rate than men at every age. In the womb, male fetuses have a higher mortality rate (babies are conceived in a ratio of about 124 males to 100 females, but the ratio of those surviving to birth is only 105 males to 100 females). Among the smallest premature babies (those under 2 pounds or 900 g) females again have a higher survival rate. At the other extreme, about 90% of individuals aged 110 are female.
The reasons for this are not entirely certain. Traditional arguments tend to favor socio-environmental factors: historically, men have generally consumed more tobacco, alcohol and drugs than females in most societies, and are more likely to die from many associated diseases such as lung cancer, tuberculosis and cirrhosis of the liver.Men are also more likely to die from injuries, whether unintentional (such as car accidents) or intentional (suicide, violence, war). Men are also more likely to die from most of the leading causes of death (some already stated above) than women. Some of these in the United States include: cancer of the respiratory system, motor vehicle accidents, suicide, cirrhosis of the liver, emphysema, and coronary heart disease.These far outweigh the female mortality rate from breast cancer and cervical cancer etc.

Some argue that shorter male life expectancy is merely another manifestation of the general rule, seen in all mammal species, that larger individuals tend on average to have shorter lives.This biological difference occurs because women have more resistance to infections and degenerative diseases.
Why Women Live Longer Than Men  (from the internet):