Why do men age quicker than women?
Men age faster than women according to a Finnish study published in The Journals of Gerontology in September 2022. Indeed, according to INSEE, today in France, life expectancy is 85.4 years for women and 79.3 years for men. In Finland, the same observation: “on average, women live even longer than men”, say the scientists.
To better understand this discrepancy, researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, therefore, analyzed data from 2,240 people. Among them were young twins ranging in age from 21 to 42. Some of them were also between 50 and 76 years old. In addition, 151 complete pairs of opposite-sex twins between the ages of 21 and 30 were also among the participants. They then used the candidates’ DNA to calculate ‘epigenetic age acceleration’. They also sought to understand whether factors such as body mass index (BMI), smoking, alcohol consumption and physical activity were at play.
Aging: the gap between men and women widens from the age of 21
As a result, the age gap widened as the participants got older. In effect, among 21-42 year olds, the biological age of men was 1.2 years higher compared to that of women. In the 50-76 age group, this difference reaches 4.3 years. Moreover, the differences start from the age of 21 and deepen over the years according to scientists.
“Compared to women, men were biologically older and, in general, they had a poor lifestyle,” say the researchers in the study. “The effect of sex on biological aging was partly influenced by body mass index. In older twins, smoking is the primary cause of this aging.”
Smoking: leading cause of aging in young people
According to scientists, tobacco seems to be one of the main reasons for this faster aging in men. “Among the behavioral factors hazardous to health, smoking was found to be the main driver of the trend and magnitude of gender differences in life expectancy,” report the study researchers.
In addition, the researchers point out in their result that, generally, men consume more alcohol than women. For example, “in Finland, the risk of alcohol-related death is three times higher in men than in women,” the researchers state in their study. This trend is also confirmed in France: “alcohol is responsible for 36,500 deaths in men, which represents 13% of total male mortality, and 12,500 deaths among women, or 5% of total mortality,” writes Le Figaro.fr.
Estrogen levels protect women
The scientists also pointed out that estrogen levels in women would have beneficial effects on their health and genetic aging. “Women’s biological longevity advantage may be the result of greater resistance to oxidative damage associated with estrogen,” they explain. As a reminder, estrogens are female ovarian hormones that play a key role in regulation of the menstrual cycle, sexual desire, bone regeneration metabolism and skin hydration.
However, “in women, sex hormone levels change dramatically during menopause,” the researchers reveal. In other words, from this moment of life, women could be less protected from this genetic aging.
