Sex Differences in Longevity and in Responses to Anti-Aging Interventions: A Mini-Review

Abstract

A robust, often underappreciated, feature of human biology is that women live longer than men not just in technologically advanced, low-mortality countries such as those in Europe or North America, but across low- and high-mortality countries of the modern world as well as through history. Women's survival advantage is not due to protection from one or a few diseases. Women die at lower rates than men from virtually all the top causes of death with the notable exception of Alzheimer's disease, to which women are particularly prone. Yet, despite this robust survival advantage, women across countries of the world suffer worse health throughout life. The biological mechanisms underlying either longer female survival or poorer female health remain elusive and understudied. Mechanisms of mammalian biology, particularly with respect to aging and disease, are most easily studied in laboratory mice. Although there are no consistent differences in longevity between mouse sexes even within single genotypes, there are often substantial differences in individual studies, sometimes favoring females, other times males. Investigating the environmental causes of this puzzling variation in longevity differences could prove illuminating. Sex differences in response to life-extending genetic or pharmacological interventions appear surprisingly often in mice. Longevity enhancement due to reduced signaling through IGF-1 or mTOR signaling typically favors females, whereas enhancement via a range of pharmacological treatments favors males. These patterns could be due to interactions of the interventions with sex steroids, with adiponectin or leptin levels, or with the sex differences in immune function or the regional distribution of body fat. Clearly, generalizations from one sex cannot be extended to the other, and inclusion of both sexes in biomedical studies of human or other animals is worth the effort and expense.

Physical Activity Level, Functional Mobility and Fall Risk in the Elderly

“…This feminization of old age occurred always in history and in various parts of the world. (15) The mean age of the sample involved in this study was 68 ± 7 years, with a prevalence of 60 to 69 years (51.9%), as also observed in other studies. (16)(17)(18) Most of the subjects in our research reported only up to three years of school education (86.5%), which sets the difficulty of school access, historically presented by Brazilian low-income population, especially regarding the women.…”

Association of sleep quality with excessive daytime somnolence and quality of life of elderlies of community

“…Regarding lifestyle habits, few elderly people reported smoking and alcohol consumption, which may be explained by the predominance of females in the sample, considering that women devote more attention to health and self-care [20, 21]. According to the IPAQ, most of participants were considered active, diverging from other studies in which the level of physical activity is presented inversely proportional to income and education [33, 34].…”

“…The great number of females in old age is associated with several aspects, such as less exposure to occupational risk factors, lower prevalence of smoking and alcoholism, greater attention to health and self-care, and greater frequency of using the health services [20, 21]. …”

MEN’S HEALTH RESEARCH VERSUS ANDROLOGY—DEFINING THE DIVISION AND CLOSING THE DIVIDEMen’s Health Research from the Perspective of Andrology

“…Data going back centuries in several European countries show that a substantial difference in life expectancy between men and women has been consistently present. 21,22 Women live longer and this has been shown to be true for 176 countries and geopolitical units out of 178 in Unstats.un.org. 23 Starting with this observation, those within the sociologist camp have explored the disparity in male/ female longevity in terms of social cause.…”