Gender Medicine

Evolutionary forces explain why women live longer than men

Published in Health and Medicine Week, June 1st, 2006

Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers.

"Women live longer in almost every country, and the sex difference in lifespan has been recognized since at least the mid-18th century," said Daniel J. Kruger, a research scientist in the U-M School of Public Health and the Institute for Social Research. "It isn't a recent trend; it originates from our deep evolutionary history."

This skewed mortality isn't even unique to our species; the men come up short in common chimps and many other...

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Source: Health and Medicine Week (2006-06-01)

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