ABSTRACT
There is the following fact: women live longer than men. In the United States, the average longevity of white women was 77.7 years in 1977 versus 70 years for men—a gap of 7.7, compared to gap of 2.9 recorded in 1900. To a considerable extent, male fragility stems from a greater susceptibility to cardiac ailments. According to data from the American National Institutes of Health, cardiac ailments kill twice as many men as women. Other evidence also suggests that genetic factors are involved in differences in longevity. Several experiments in castration also suggest that women may have a greater propensity to increased longevity. Thus, a lifespan of 69.3 years has been recorded for a group of 297 eunuchs, versus 55.7 years for a comparable normal population. In sports, the ongoing evolution is not without parallels to the evolution in longevity, but in the opposite direction. As with the increase in longevity, records are continually broken for both men and women.
