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Editorials
Finally, it has been known for centuries that, throughout the world, men live a shorter time than women31 but until recently, the biological mechanisms behind this sex differ- ence were poorly understood. Regardless of the underly- ing disease mechanism(s) discussed here, LOY is a male- specific somatic aneuploidy that can help to explain part of this bias in longevity. Interestingly, a recent study demonstrated that across 229 different species, the het- erogametic sex has on average a shorter lifespan than the homogametic sex.32 For example, females tend to live longer in mammals and males tend to live longer in birds, as predicted by the “unguarded X hypothesis”. Accordingly, a reduced sex chromosome in the heteroga- metic sex (e.g., chromosome Y in mammals and chromo- some W in birds) might explain part of the differences in lifespan due to exposure of recessive deleterious muta- tions in the heterogametic sex.32 Future studies could shed light on the relative contribution of effects associated with LOY and the unguarded X hypothesis to the observed dif- ferences in disease incidence and mortality between men and women in human populations.
Disclosures
LAF is cofounder and shareholder in Cray Innovation AB.
Contributions
PB and LAF wrote the manuscript.
Acknowlegments
This work was supported by the European Research Council ERC (#679744), the Swedish Research Council (#2017- 03762) and Kjell och Märta Beijers Stiftelse to LAF.
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