Women Live Longer Than Men? Where Do We Fit?

[jessbcuzz]

We all know that it's been said that females live longer than males? I have read all different reasons why, but doesn't it come down to females taking better care of their selves versus males? Females watch what they eat, worry about their weight, so on and so forth. I often wonder how much of that aspect helps make females live longer than males. Being that we all strive for the female image, I wonder if we live longer than other males? I mean, I try to watch what I eat and walk 2 miles each day. So with that thought in mind, what do you girls think? Do you think we fall in between? Or do we have an edge on non cding males?

[Suzy Harrison]

An interesting post ! - I'm sure you're right, as with everything else - we fall between male and female!. It's not just diets though, it's also hormones, gentics and even risk taking. But as you said, the diet must make quite an impact.

[Joann0830]

If you get a chance go to vernoncoleman.com he has some great reasoning and if you read about us the CDM Ladies it makes sense. I stumbled on to his website by accident. I am new to this site but a mature Lady.

[trannie T]

Vernon Coleman is a nut case, ignore his views as they have little merit. Women live longer for several reasons, primarily because of genetics. Men can adopt a healthy lifestyle to improve our lifespans but women still have an advantage.

[Wickanne GG]

I do not agree with you in the future...lol...let me explain

Prior to the feminist movement one has to consider the 'traditional' roles of men and women. He worked and was exposed to everything nasty in the world IE: work stress, traffic, blah, blah, blah...every heard of woman kicking it from "black lung" disease? She stayed at home and did all the “she” things that needed to be done. Remember, there was a time when women didn’t drive, handle the money or do many other things.

Some common symptoms of stress are poor eating habits, drinking, and smoking. All 'traditionally' male habits.

Statistics have/are shown/ing that the women are not out living men, as they were prior to the feminist movement. Why? Because we have picked up 'traditionally' male bad habits...smoking, drinking and poor eating habits due to stress from all those equal rights we wanted and deserved. A lot more women now like to drive ‘fast’ cars and do the ‘fun’ things traditionally male.

The cost of our new found freedom, in the not to distant future, if the current trends continue, you are going to see the average age of death for men and women become more equal. We wanted equality!

The following comments are meant to mean the “average” and refer to reproduction only.

Who do you think should be, genetically, favoured here?

A woman has a limited time to reproduce. From the time she starts menses (12-15) until mentalpause, oops, menopause (48-55). (BTW: none of use knows why the word “pause” because it doesn’t pause it stops.) Women are rendered useless after menopause.
Men can reproduce from cradle to grave.

The issue isn't as much about genetics as it is lifestyle.

Since I have a limited attention span I'll let someone else expand on this.

:love:
Wickanne

[Zee]

I do not agree with you in the future...lol...let me explain

Prior to the feminist movement one has to consider the 'traditional' roles of men and women. He worked and was exposed to everything nasty in the world IE: work stress, traffic, blah, blah, blah...every heard of woman kicking it from "black lung" disease? She stayed at home and did all the “she” things that needed to be done. Remember, there was a time when women didn’t drive, handle the money or do many other things.

Some common symptoms of stress are poor eating habits, drinking, and smoking. All 'traditionally' male habits.

Statistics have/are shown/ing that the women are not out living men, as they were prior to the feminist movement. Why? Because we have picked up 'traditionally' male bad habits...smoking, drinking and poor eating habits due to stress from all those equal rights we wanted and deserved. A lot more women now like to drive ‘fast’ cars and do the ‘fun’ things traditionally male.

The cost of our new found freedom, in the not to distant future, if the current trends continue, you are going to see the average age of death for men and women become more equal. We wanted equality!

The following comments are meant to mean the “average” and refer to reproduction only.

Who do you think should be, genetically, favoured here?

A woman has a limited time to reproduce. From the time she starts menses until mentalpause, oops, menopause. (BTW: none of use knows why the word “pause” because it doesn’t pause it stops.) Women are rendered useless after menopause.
Men can reproduce from cradle to grave.

The issue isn't as much about genetics as it is lifestyle.

Since I have a limited attention span I'll let someone else expand on this.

:love:
Wickanne

K, will do.

I mostly agree with you on this one Wickanne.

Women, I would say, are not rendered useless after menopause. For reproductive aspects, possibly (the rare case of women bearing children after menopause has happend), but older women still have a lot to contribute in many other areas.

However, back to the topic at hand, the traditional role of a male and that of a female were vastly different back in the day. Now, however, as more women enter the types of labour that were traditionally male (construction, mining, forestry, oil drilling), we are seeing a decrease in the female life span. It doesn't help that women tend to be under more stress than men especially when a woman has children to look after. Granted there are men with custody of children, but it seems to me that more women have the children in a broken relationship. This adds significantly to stress, and stress has been linked to almost every kind of unhealthy disorder out there.

I would say that in the not so distant future, we are going to see the average life span of a women equal out to what a mans will be. I personally think that a men's lifespan will increase slightly, while women's will decrease significantly.

Probably the best thing anyone can do in life to alleviate stress is to read my signature. I have tried to follow this advice ever since I was 8 years old when my brother - in - law said it to me after I had a fit. It rings true for me even today.

[Katrina]

Part of what "adds" to the lifespan of a given group of people is the infant mortality rate. Since the average lifespan takes that into account, it may mean that male babies are also more likely to die for whatever reasons. But, if you look at the average old folks home, I think you see more females there than males, so I think it also affects us on the tail end of the spectrum as well.

As for where the TG people land, I would guess that on average, we have a lower expectancy than "regular" men and women. The reasoning for that is higher suicide rate due to serious depression than almost any other group. In addition to that, the ones that do transition experience higher rates of heart disease and other problems due to HRT.

[Tamara Croft]

Must be something wrong with the female grandparents of my family then, because they all died first, including Tammys gran :(

[Wickanne GG]

I think a couple of things where missed.


I do not agree with you in the future...lol...let me explain

Prior to the feminist movement one has to consider the 'traditional' roles of men and women. He worked and was exposed to everything nasty in the world IE: work stress, traffic, blah, blah, blah...every heard of woman kicking it from "black lung" disease? She stayed at home and did all the “she” things that needed to be done. Remember, there was a time when women didn’t drive, handle the money or do many other things.

Some common symptoms of stress are poor eating habits, drinking, and smoking. All 'traditionally' male habits.

Statistics have/are shown/ing that the women are not out living men, as they were prior to the feminist movement. Why? Because we have picked up 'traditionally' male bad habits...smoking, drinking and poor eating habits due to stress from all those equal rights we wanted and deserved. A lot more women now like to drive ‘fast’ cars and do the ‘fun’ things traditionally male.

The cost of our new found freedom, in the not to distant future, if the current trends continue, you are going to see the average age of death for men and women become more equal. We wanted equality!

The following comments are meant to mean the “average” and refer to reproduction only.
Who do you think should be, genetically, favoured here?

A woman has a limited time to reproduce. From the time she starts menses (12-15) until mentalpause, oops, menopause (48-55). (BTW: none of use knows why the word “pause” because it doesn’t pause it stops.) Women are rendered useless after menopause.
Men can reproduce from cradle to grave.

The issue isn't as much about genetics as it is lifestyle.

Since I have a limited attention span I'll let someone else expand on this.

:love:
Wickanne

What you are seeing in retirement homes are the remants of the "old" days, the people I spoke of in my OP....grandparents fall into this also.

I always feels odd quoting myself.


Part of what "adds" to the lifespan of a given group of people is the infant mortality rate. Since the average lifespan takes that into account, it may mean that male babies are also more likely to die for whatever reasons.....

I cannot agree with you on this because of a custom in a certain part of the world which places no real value on female life. At birth the females are killed but the males are not. Now they have a shortage of females. (Whether we like it or not, it is a way of life there, males are keep at home and educated and the MOTHER provides the male his sexual release.)

Therefore, I would tend to believe the customs of certain countries around the world and the conditions of certain countries around the world, in the world as a whole, infant mortality is basically balanced.

:love:
Wickanne

[battybattybats]

Ageing is caused by several things.

Wear and tear on the body. Joints wear out, injuries dont heal to quite the level they were at etc.

Flawed copies of cells. As cells copy themselves often they fail to copy properly.. this is the cause of the deterioration of the ageing process. It is also often a cause of cancer. The body has a mechanism to self-destruct flawed copies but it isn't very efficient. A recent experiment with mice where they doubled up the gene that activates this mechanism massively reduced cancer in the mice while also keeping them essentially young until they reached their normal lifespan and died. This probably won't be available for humans for 10-20 years due to the stringent levels of testing required.

Telomeres. These are essentially fuses. Every time a cell copies itself by dividing in two the telomere of each is a bit shorter. When these run out the cell doesn't divide but dies. This is the lifespan cap on people. There have been successful experiments on worms and other simpler animals in resetting the telomeres. Extending the lifespan by 3-5 fold! Used in conjunction with one of several ways to reduce flawed cell copying the average human lifespan could maybe reach 300-500 years of youth!

Of these genetic factors none are gender dependant.
However socially men have been taught that showing any sign of weakness is taboo, not to cry, not to be a 'sissy'.. so it shouldn't be any wonder when many men avoid regular check-ups and wait untill too late to see a doctor about a host of diseases.
As long as men cave in to peer pressure and conform to social standards it will keep killing them.

[Lisa Golightly]

When you look at the oldest man and woman on record the difference is negligiable.

[Nigella]

Facts and figures can be manipulated to suit the theme. I know that sometime I will leave this earth, when or how old I will be, who cares, certainly not me.

Just read the obits in any paper, you will find that men and women die young and old, why anyone should calculate who is likely to die first is beyond me.

[PaulaJaneThomas]

I've not heard of any evidence that wearing a skirt and heels will make you live longer although it does make the time pass more pleasantly :D

[Angie G]

It could be but it may be an individual thing like what runs in your family and that stuff and one must take care of yourself what you eat and exercise will help :hugs:
Angie