Despite the less healthy lifestyles of men in the past compared to women, experts have still been slightly puzzled as to why the average lifespan of a woman approaches 80 years, while the average man lives some four or five years less. However, a team of scientists from Denmark and Norway claim to have found a reason why women last longer. The secret, they say, lies in the chromosomes in each cell, which hold all the genetic instructions to make the body function properly. Each individual cell uses one of these when it is created. And when ageing identical twins were checked, they were in many cases both using one particular cell line more frequently.
Males have only one cell line.
So they have only one chance. Studies in animals back up this theory. In mammals, males generally have the two different sex chromosomes - and they have shorter lifespans than females, who have two. In birds, the reverse is true - and male birds generally outlive the females. Although many scientists believe there is a genetic reason why women live longer than men, conventional wisdom states that there are other significant reasons why this should be the case.