TY - CHAP
T1 - Sex differences in longevity and aging
AU - Austad, Steven N.
N1 - Funding Information:
I thank Roger McCarter, Ed Masoro, Deborah Roach, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on this chapter. I am grateful for the grant support for my research provided by the U.S. National Institute on Aging (R01 AG022873 and K07 AG025063), the Paul Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, and the San Antonio Area Foundation.
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - This chapter reviews the copious evidence for the robustness of women's survival advantage, discusses some of the extant evolutionary and mechanistic hypotheses to explain this pattern, and also examines some pragmatic approaches to investigating this issue. The human sex difference in longevity, and possibly aging, may be as robust an aspect of biology as any that one do not understand even in broad terms. Information from both the natural world and captive populations indicates clearly that among different species one may find wildly divergent patterns of sex differences. Sometimes females seem more robust, sometimes males. The evolutionary hypothesis that seems best supported by existing evidence is the Williams hypothesis, in which the sex subjected to the greatest extrinsic hazards in the wild will evolve the more rapidly deteriorating phenotype. Gaining insight into the cellular, molecular, and physiological mechanism(s) underlying greater female robustness in humans would potentially be a great boon for enhancing and extending male health. On the other hand, understanding in more detail women's greater susceptibility to chronic nonfatal conditions would be a great boon to their health. Mouse models of the aging process are unlikely to be informative with respect to elucidating mechanisms of these sex differences unless the conditions favoring enhanced male longevity versus female longevity can be discovered. Other model species may prove more suitable for research in this field.
AB - This chapter reviews the copious evidence for the robustness of women's survival advantage, discusses some of the extant evolutionary and mechanistic hypotheses to explain this pattern, and also examines some pragmatic approaches to investigating this issue. The human sex difference in longevity, and possibly aging, may be as robust an aspect of biology as any that one do not understand even in broad terms. Information from both the natural world and captive populations indicates clearly that among different species one may find wildly divergent patterns of sex differences. Sometimes females seem more robust, sometimes males. The evolutionary hypothesis that seems best supported by existing evidence is the Williams hypothesis, in which the sex subjected to the greatest extrinsic hazards in the wild will evolve the more rapidly deteriorating phenotype. Gaining insight into the cellular, molecular, and physiological mechanism(s) underlying greater female robustness in humans would potentially be a great boon for enhancing and extending male health. On the other hand, understanding in more detail women's greater susceptibility to chronic nonfatal conditions would be a great boon to their health. Mouse models of the aging process are unlikely to be informative with respect to elucidating mechanisms of these sex differences unless the conditions favoring enhanced male longevity versus female longevity can be discovered. Other model species may prove more suitable for research in this field.
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U2 - 10.1016/B978-0-12-378638-8.00023-3
DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-378638-8.00023-3
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:81155133189
SN - 9780123786388
SP - 479
EP - 495
BT - Handbook of the Biology of Aging
PB - Elsevier Inc.
ER -