{"id":32911,"date":"2021-04-14T14:52:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T18:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=32911"},"modified":"2021-04-23T14:17:33","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T18:17:33","slug":"human-senescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Senescence: The Mysteries of Aging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Why is the female lifespan longer than a male&#8217;s? Why do women go through menopause? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These questions about human senescence, or aging, can be explained through <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/evolutionary-medicine\/\">Darwinian medicine<\/a>. Darwinism says that the human body prioritized reproductive health above all else. That means that it will prioritize short-term reproductive fitness over long-term sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep reading to learn more about the process of senescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Nuances of Human Senescence<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What people call aging is biologically termed human <strong>senescence<\/strong>, the bodily deterioration accompanying age. Human organ systems tend to wear out at the same rate, on average. Maintenance and repair systems lose their efficacy, and old people become progressively more vulnerable to diseases and injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Senescence has been stable over time. Over the past centuries, the <em>average<\/em> human lifespan has increased, but the <em>maximum<\/em> lifespan has not. Despite all our medical advances, humans cannot live past about 115 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Males Die Earlier than Females<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In humans, males live an average of seven years less than females. The authors of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/why-we-get-sick\/\">Why We Get Sick<\/a><\/em> argue this is because males must compete for female mates, and much of male physiology is devoted to this competition. Less concern is paid to the preservation of the body. If an unusually fit male can mate with many women and have a lot of offspring, while mediocre males mate with no women and have no offspring, it makes sense to devote resources to this competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Mystery of Menopause<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Menopause is somewhat of a mystery. Why should women stop reproducing at any age?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This might be explained by a mother needing to split finite resources over children. <strong>Having too many children might decrease the fitness of the mother\u2019s children.<\/strong> Menopause is a natural safety switch to conserve resources for her limited number of offspring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why don\u2019t males undergo something like menopause? They stay capable of reproduction well into old age. Because for most of history men could not prove that a child was theirs, they tend to participate less in childcare. Their strategy, then, is to mate as frequently and over as long a period of time as possible. Any male that ceased reproduction early would be at a large reproductive fitness disadvantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Anti-Senescent Genes<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Some genes may do the opposite of the above, conferring advantages throughout adult life at some cost to reproductive fitness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, gout is caused by urate, an antioxidant that scavenges radical oxygen species. It\u2019s possible that people who suffer from gout may show decreased senescence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why is the female lifespan longer than a male&#8217;s? Why do women go through menopause? These questions about human senescence, or aging, can be explained through Darwinian medicine. Darwinism says that the human body prioritized reproductive health above all else. That means that it will prioritize short-term reproductive fitness over long-term sustainability. Keep reading to learn more about the process of senescence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,160],"tags":[265],"class_list":["post-32911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-science","tag-why-we-get-sick","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Human Senescence: The Mysteries of Aging - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why can humans only live to a maximum of 115 years old? Why do women stop reproducing after menopause? Find out these answers and more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Human Senescence: The Mysteries of Aging\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why can humans only live to a maximum of 115 years old? Why do women stop reproducing after menopause? Find out these answers and more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-14T18:52:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-23T18:17:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/elderly-couple.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1029\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"664\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hannah Aster\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hannah Aster\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Hannah Aster\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f39f52830e4f7039a16e45d12354542f\"},\"headline\":\"Human Senescence: The Mysteries of Aging\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-14T18:52:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-23T18:17:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/\"},\"wordCount\":421,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/elderly-couple.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Why We Get Sick\"],\"articleSection\":[\"History\",\"Science\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/\",\"name\":\"Human Senescence: The Mysteries of Aging - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/human-senescence\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/elderly-couple.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-14T18:52:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-04-23T18:17:33+00:00\",\"description\":\"Why can humans only live to a maximum of 115 years old? 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