Scientists from University of Newcastle, Britain claim to have solved the mystery that why women live longer than men.
Female body cells are genetically programmed to last longer than male body cells and this is the reason as to why women outlive men, reveals Professor Tom Kirkwood of the University of Newcastle, Britain.
The theory suggests that men are biologically more disposable than women.
The female body is more efficient in carrying out routine maintenance checks which are required to keep our body cells ticking.
"Could it be that women live longer because they are less disposable than men? This notion, in fact, makes excellent biological sense," Professor Kirkwood suggested.
The "soma" theory
Kirkwood first came up with his theory, popularly known as the "soma" theory while bathing on a winter's night in 1977.
The theory states that our genes are immortal and live infinitely by getting continually passed on from generation to generation.
On the other hand, our body(soma) is mortal(disposable) and lives only long enough to carry the genes to the next generation.
He further compared human body with a car mechanism. Similar to a car, our body needs regular maintenance to keep working.
With time, faults creep up within our system and destroy our cells and tissues.
As these errors require loads of energy to get fixed, the body eventually finishes on its energy deposits and dies.
During this process, everything depends of the amount of effort done by the body to rectify the mistakes.
Biological explanation
Kirkwood believes that there is a hidden biological explanation for the differences in the life expectancies between men and women.
"In females, reproductive success is so inextricably bound up with the integrity of the body and the evidence is really clear right across the life course - men have a statistically significant, higher likelihood of dying at all ages compared to women.
"It seems to be deeply engrained in the biology. Obviously differences in lifestyle may add or subtract to it, but I'm absolutely convinced that there's an underlying biological explanation for the gender differences we see between the life expectancy of the sexes," he added.
