Friday, August 3, 2012

Why women live longer?

The answer to the mystery of why women tend to live longer than men was found in the mitochondrial DNA studies of fruit flies.


Mitochondria are inherited only from mothers, never from fathers, so there is no way to weed out mutations that damage a male's prospects.

But one ageing expert said there were many factors that explained the gender difference in life expectancy.

It is not only in human, females outlive males in many other species.

Mitochondria, which exist in almost all animal cells, convert food into the energy that powers the body.

Group of scientists from Monash University found numerous mutations within mitochondrial DNA that affect how long males live, and the speed at which they age. Mitochondrial mutations they uncovered will generally cause faster male ageing across the animal kingdom.

They suggested this is because there is no evolutionary reason for the faults that affect males to be picked up - because mitochondria are passed down by females.

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