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Asked by Elicabanas to Tom, Paul, Natasha, Ildiko, Ester, Eoin on 14 Nov 2017.
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Natasha Myhill answered on 14 Nov 2017:
A good question! Scientists think that this is down to two reasons. Men are twice as likely to get heart disease than women. This is largely down to reasons like increased smoking, drinking, bad diet etc, compared with women. Men also have higher rates of lung cancer and emphysema, again linked to the smoking. The other reason is behavioural but that affects younger men more than older men.
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Ester Gil Vazquez answered on 14 Nov 2017:
This is a tricky one! because you can’t know whether this differences are based on different biology (in the case of diseases) or different habits. For example, in the case of lung cancer, if one sex smokes more than the other, they will get more lung cancer, so it is not [completely] down to biology. When I was in uni they also told us that men are (still sometimes) raised in a way that leads them to be more bold and take more risks, so they are involved in more accidents than women (car accidents, bad falls, short-circuits, etc). But whenever you have genes in the sexual chromosomes affecting diseases, you’ll find biological differences between sexes in terms of how often they get ill.
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Eoin McKinney answered on 15 Nov 2017:
I agree completely with Natasha and Ester….. but… men are also much more likely to do stupid things that get them killed!
I’m only half-joking as males of many species have evolved to fight with each other for mates, food, their favourite sports team…. and this type of behaviour isn’t conducive to a long and happy life.
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