Why Women Are Relatively Long-lived

Scientists are now beginning to understand one reason why women on average live longer than men. Monash University-led research explains how mutations in mitochondrial DNA to differentiate the life expectancy of women and men. Dr. Damian Dowling and a PhD students, Florencia Camus from Monash School of Biological Sciences in collaboration with Dr. David Clancy of Lancaster University reveals differences in longevity and aging of fruit fly males and bilogis females. They found genetic variation in mitochondria is a reliable predictor of life expectancy for males, but not females. Mitokondiria that exist in almost all animal cell function change food into energy to power food body. Meanwhile, Dr. Dowling suggests mitochondrial DNA mutations that affect how long-lived men. "Interestingly, this is not the same mutation in aging anesthetic patterns of women. Mitochondrial mutations affect only males that will lead to faster aging, "he explained. Researchers say mutations are fully associated with the idiosyncrasies of mitochondrial genes in ways derived from parent to child. While children receive copies of most genes of both parents, yet they only receive the mitochondrial gene from the mother. This means the quality control process of evolution known as natural selection.