Lifespan and the sexes

Submitted by MikeJH on Sat, 2013-01-12 21:53

Article here. Excerpt:

'In England and Wales, the biggest peacetime difference between the life expectancies at birth of the two sexes was 6.3 years. That was in 1967. It is now 4.1 years, and falling. In the early 1980s women who made it to 65, the traditional age of retirement for British men, could expect to live four years longer than their male counterparts. The gap now is less than three years (see chart), though there is still some way to go before things return to the nine-month gap that prevailed in the 1840s, when records began. Other industrialised countries, except Japan and Russia, show something similar.
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A further fifth of the longevity gap between the sexes is explained by alcohol. In this case, however, the gap is widening. In 1979 two men died from alcohol-related causes for every woman who succumbed. In 2009 it was 2.4.

A third important factor is obesity—or, rather, the physiological complications obesity brings, such as high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes. On the face of things, there is little difference between the sexes in this area: 15.6% of women in the EU are obese, compared with 15.4% of men. But obesity may have a greater impact on women because it increases the risks of both hypertension and diabetes in their sex more than it does in men. And men are also closing the gap in another area related to obesity and high blood pressure: coronary heart disease. In England, deaths from this fell more than 50% between 1991 and 2005 for both men and women. But, because heart disease kills twice as many men as it does women, the reduction in the male mortality rate has been greater.'

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While power/wealth in societies are indeed a zero-sum game, longevity is not. Any time any class of person's lifespan increases, it's a good thing, all other things being equal. However if there is a comparative gain for one group because the other group(s) are losing out on some lifespan time, that is not a thing to be celebrated. We're seeing here an increase in male lifespan but a decrease in female.

Women are using more alcohol as a relative percentage of the pop'n than they have in the past, and abusing it at relatively higher rates, too. Likewise for drugs and smoking. Western countries have met with some success at getting men to reduce their use and abuse of these substances while not emphasizing to everyone else (i.e., women) that refraining from taking up these behaviors is a good thing. (eg, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/may/06/binge-drinking-women )

Men still out-use women when it comes to drinking/drugs/smoking, but when the news is that women are "catching up" to men in this dept., it's not a "You've come a long way, baby!" moment. The public health focus should not be specific to either sex; the message ought to be: "This is your lung; this is your lung on cigarettes; any questions?" Gender isn't a factor when it comes to telling people they are a lot better off refraining from doing self-destructive things, and there is no cause for celebrating anyone taking up self-destructive habits.

I'll tell you what'll make me happy when it comes to men and women merging into the same life-span category: Obesity rates down 75% for BOTH sexes; excessive drinking rates down for BOTH sexes by the same amount; likewise for illicit drug use. Lifespan rates: Up 20% for both sexes, or better yet, equal for both, as they should be.

Now that'll make me happy. Knowing that, if two people are lucky enough to really meet someone they can be with 'til death do them part (whether they get hitched or not), that if they are pretty much the same age when their relationship starts, that it'll be a nice long life together and they go on to meet in the next life (take your pick of scenarios: heaven, reincarnation, whatever's your thing) at roughly the same time-- now THAT is the right way to punch out/expire/run up the curtain/croak/keel over/just plain die. Having to wait another 10 years before you get to see your beloved again on the other side of the bridge would just plain suck.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2013-01-12 23:52