Glimmerings

� excerpt from Shaba Deux | Main | Wired article on Israel Kamakawiwo'ole �

July 21, 2004

A zooarchaeologist's data on human mortality (or why it is bad for your health to be a man)

In human populations, mortality varies by gender, age, and the size of social networks. Males die younger and more often than females across age categories, and "males die at greater rates of everything you can think of except for things from which males can't die," said Grayson. Under conditions of famine and cold, males, compared to females, are biologically disadvantaged by their greater size, higher basal metabolisms, and higher core body temperatures, which require greater energy to combat cold. Females, because they have more subcutaneous fat, are better insulated against the cold. In times of famine, if resources are shared, males are less likely to meet their energy needs than females.

Mortality rates are normally higher for people aged 1 to 5, after which they drop. "They begin climbing again at about the age of 35 and then climb higher and higher and higher until everybody, in fact, is dead," said Grayson. People with larger social networks -- family and friends -- live longer. Married men live longer than single men. It is reversed for married and single women, explained Grayson.

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Posted by thdyck on July 21, 2004

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