Thought provoking discussion by Dr Al Sears about why women tend to outlive men by 5 to 10 years, and that almost all the world’s supercentarians (110 years +).
My dad used to say it was because men had to work and put up with idiot bosses and were therefore more stressed. This rather simplistic theory didn’t consider that women had to put up with spouses and children of course.
Dr Sears wanted to find out if the supercentarians had other things in common and looked at
- where they were living
- how long their telomeres were
- immunity
- stress
He found that women have less oxidative stress than men because we produce fewer free radicals to cause inflammation and more natural antioxidants (like glutathione and SOD).
Turns out telomeres are very sensitive to this oxidative stress and therefore, while we start out with the same length telomeres, the rate of damage to men’s is much faster.
There is also some evidence that women’s stronger immunity and estrogen protect their telomeres as well.
His advice?
- Reduce oxidative stress
- Increase IGF-1 through supplementing with Creatine (or consuming foods that contain it)
My personal experience with Creatine was it made me bloated with water weight. But I might give this another go. Apparently there is a different formulation for women – maybe someone knows about this?
Can read Dr Sear’s article here: