Sopranos but not tenors live longer.

[rs1...@yahoo.com]

Aging Male. 2011 Oct 31. [Epub ahead of print]

Sopranos but not tenors live longer.

Abel EL, M Kruger M, Pandya K.

Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychology, Wayne State
University , Detroit, MI , USA.

The longer life spans of females compared to males has been attributed
to the effects of sex hormones. Since experimental tests of this
possibility in humans are unethical, indirect studies have been relied
on for evidence. The present study offers such indirect evidence by
comparing life spans of female and male opera singers, since sex
hormones are known to influence development of voice. Life spans of
sopranos were found to be significantly greater than those of lower
voice registered contraltos, even after controlling for birth year.
Differences among male opera singers were not statistically
significant. The data support the hypothesis that females live longer
than males because of the beneficial effects of estrogens on longevity-
related genes.

PMID: 22040254 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

[Taka]

Well done! They should look at the castratos as well ... I as I have
been saying all along testosterone is the "devil's hormone" in a sense
that it prioritizes reproduction at the expense of somatic
maintenance. This is done by a simple suppression of the immune
system so that it doesn't waste energy on repairs of the tissues which
are non-essential for species survival. The immune system just
ignores the damage as long as your gonads keep cranking testosterone/
DHT up in large amounts. However, after this ends the immune system
suddenly sees all the mess accumulated over the reproductive decades
and gets overwhelmed and stuck in chronic inflammatory state as it
cannot manage to repair all of it.

Taka