Why do women live longer than men in virtually every country? Why are men more vulnerable to heart disease and most cancers, while women are more vulnerable to migraines, chronic pain, and immune systems that attack their own bodies? And how much of this comes down to how we live vs. how evolution built us?
In this excerpt from my book A Billion Years of Sex Differences, we’ll explore how natural selection shaped the different ways that men and women get sick, suffer, and die. Among other things, we’ll discover:
Why men’s reluctance to visit the doctor may have deep evolutionary roots
What monks, newborn babies, and wild mammals reveal about why men die younger
Why eliminating the longevity gender gap would save more years of life than curing cancer
The drastic intervention that would mean men live as long as women - and why most men would rather die young
Why the conventional wisdom about which sex handles pain better gets things exactly backwards