Do women actually live longer than men? A look at Ghana's political class

There has been a long-held view that women live longer than men. This has been confirmed by several research reports. For example, the Voice of America (VOA) reported on a study conducted by an international team of scientists led by Jean-François Lemaître, from the University of Lyon 1 in France, that collected information on age-related mortality for 134 populations of 101

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The study found that among humans, a woman's life span is almost 8% longer on average than a man's life span. But among wild mammals, females in 60% of the studied species have, on average, 18.6% longer lifespans.

I will be supporting this assessment further by analyzing the political class of Ghana.

The first President of our republic, His Excellency Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, passed on before his wife. Many will argue that the coup, with its associated problems, might have robbed our former President of his life so early. Dr. Limann, who died at 64, left behind his beloved wife, Fulera Limann. His death, we are told, was of natural causes.

Note that part that says he left behind his wife. A few days ago, the death of the wife of Ghana’s former Head of State, the late Gen. Frederick William Akuffo, was reported. We cannot predict how long the late husband would have lived had he not been executed.

We all witnessed the shocking passing of his excellency, former President Rawlings. He left behind his beloved Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings. The question is, what is killing or taking our men so early? Why do women tend to live longer than their husbands or male counterparts?

The available data from rich countries shows that women didn’t live longer than men in the 19th century. Why do women live so much longer than men today, and why has this advantage increased over time? This is according to ourworldindata.org.

They say this has to do with some key non-biological factors that have changed. What are these changing factors? Some are well-known and relatively straightforward, like the fact that men smoke more often. Others are more complicated.

For example, there is evidence that in rich countries, the female advantage increased in part because infectious diseases used to affect women disproportionately a century ago, so advances in medicine that reduced the long-term health burden of infectious diseases, especially for survivors, ended up raising women’s longevity disproportionately.

It is said the evidence of the longer life expectancy of women over men comes from differences in chromosomes and hormones between men and women. For example, males tend to have more fat surrounding their organs (they have more "visceral fat") whereas women tend to have more fat sitting directly under the skin (called "subcutaneous fat").

This difference is determined both by estrogen and the presence of the second X chromosome in females, and it matters for longevity because fat surrounding the organs predicts cardiovascular disease.

So, if you are a man, then you might consider these factors and work on them if you want to enjoy a longer life with your partner.