Why Old Fart So Afraid of Gecko's DEATH

[makapaaa]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Women can help men live longer


</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>They can start by teaching the guys in their lives about the need to care more - especially about their state of health </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Kanwaljit Soin


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Let me start with a stark fact - men in Singapore have fewer allotted years of life compared to women. The trend has not changed for half a century.
According to statistics from the 2008 World Population Data Sheet, the life expectancy at birth for Singapore males is 78. For females, it is 83. Men, on average, die five years earlier than women but if it is any consolation to Singaporean men, this pattern is similar in most other developing countries.
Our ancestors sensed the longevity gap between men and women. In ancient Greek mythology, Tithonus was a mortal beloved by Aurora, the goddess of the dawn. She begged Zeus to give him eternal life, but forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. As Tithonus withered and shrank into a grasshopper, Aurora remained a strong and youthful caregiver for her old lover.
What is behind the male/female gap in life expectancy? Biology and gender are the key factors that influence differences in mortality. Biology refers to sex - whether you have XX or XY chromosomes. Gender refers to the social and economic roles and responsibilities that society and families assign to men and women. Gender differences are created by cultural norms and not by biological differences.
Together these two factors influence health risks, health-seeking behaviour and health outcomes for men and women.
However, when looking at gender disparities in health and mortality, it can be hard to get at biological differences. 'You can't tease out the societal differences from the biology - they come as a package,' says Professor Ingrid Waldron, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Other researchers have emphasised the importance of gender in explaining men's health issues. The gender-related concept of 'masculinity' can exacerbate men's risk-taking behaviour and health problems, and can also limit men's access to health care. This approach suggests that men's 'risk-taking' behaviours and the 'male role', or being 'macho', are the real culprits of poor health.
'Being male is now the single largest demographic factor for early death,' says Professor Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He says that the finding has important implications for public health. 'If you could make male mortality rates the same as female rates, you would do more good than curing cancer.'
The US data is backed by death rates in countries including Ireland, Australia, Russia, El Salvador and Singapore. Prof Nesse and his fellow researchers found that everywhere they looked, it's more perilous to be male. This picture also emerges when one looks at the age-specific death rates in Singapore - male mortality is higher than female mortality in each age group.

 

[makapaaa]

The same researchers say that sexual selection could also partly explain some of the differences. Men generally invest less in their children than women do, and as a result may compete more vigorously with each other for potential mates. This rivalry could be what drives them to take greater risks, with the result that men have evolved greater reproductive success at the expense of longevity. The same may be true for chimpanzees and even fruit flies.
Male physiology, shaped by eons of sexual competition, is putting the guys at a disadvantage in longevity. Male immune systems are somewhat weaker, and their bodies are less able to process the fat they eat, according to Dr David Kruger from the University of Michigan.
And behavioural causes - smoking, overeating, reckless driving, and violence - set men apart from most women. 'Because mortality rates in general are going down, behavioural causes of death are ever more prevalent.' Premature death

Men die prematurely in Singapore in seven different ways:
Simply being a man is bad for your health partly because of the excesses of youth. Among the males who died from accidents in Singapore in 2001, those aged between 20 and 39 formed the largest proportion, and the majority of these deaths were caused by motor vehicle traffic accidents.
Our culture, like elsewhere, condones men's sexual promiscuity (sexual double standards). In 2005, 89.8 per cent of people reporting HIV infections in Singapore were men. The Health Promotion Board website on Aids (http://www.hpb.gov.sg/aids) states that 'most Singaporean men who are infected with HIV had sex with prostitutes either locally or overseas. Singaporean women usually get infected by their husbands or boyfriends'.
Men drink more, smoke more and take more drugs - this contributes to the risk of accidental death, as well as long-term health problems. Men are three times more likely to have cirrhosis of the liver than women.
Men are less likely to go to the doctor for a check-up and are more likely to go for a longer period with serious symptoms before seeking help. In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women make greater use of health-care services.
Men have less propensity to share their feelings and the resultant inward anger may have biological consequences through increased levels of stress hormones. Studies of neuroendocrine and cardiovascular reactivity show lower reactivity in women than in men. Different socialisation skills may also be a reason why men tend to have fewer social supports than women. Social supports appear to be protective of the heart.
Men often focus too intently on career, money and power in the early part of their lives, often neglecting family and friends. Unlike elderly women who often care for grandchildren and do household chores, men find themselves at a loss after retirement. Without work, they find that they do not have another role to make them feel worthy. Loneliness, depression and a lack of meaning in life can contribute to a higher suicide rate. Suicide statistics in Singapore show that in 2006, there were 260 male suicides compared to 159 female suicides.
Men are 3.4 times more prone to heart disease compared to women in Singapore. Men are also at greater risk of having a heart attack at a younger age, and thus getting struck down in the prime working age group. The competitive and aggressive characteristics of Type A behaviour are central components of the 'masculine' personality traits described by social psychologists. The prevalence of stroke is 1.5 times higher among men compared to women. The higher prevalence in men could possibly arise from differences in the frequency and control of stroke risk factors such as hypertension. More elderly women

 

[makapaaa]

One unavoidable consequence of men dying younger and of women's longer life span is the feminisation of ageing. There are more women than men in Singapore from the age of 60 onwards. After the age of 80, there are 1,720 women for every 1,000 men, and this group of the oldest old is the fastest-growing group of the elderly.
Another important socio-economic implication that comes immediately to mind is the loss of a spouse. Because of men's shorter life span and because women tend to marry older men, the odds of women becoming widowed are very real. In Singapore, 30 per cent of women between the ages of 60 and 69 are widows and this rises to 60 per cent between the ages of 70 and 79.
Widowhood presents a myriad of economic, social and psychological problems, particularly in the first year or so after the death of the spouse. If the husband was the principal breadwinner, his widow is now deprived of his income and the nucleus of the family is destroyed. One measure of men's higher income compared to women's are the CPF balances, which show a wide disparity between the genders.
Women live longer but according to 2006 data from the World Health Organisation concerning Singapore, women have 12 disability-filled years in their old age compared to nine for men with their shorter life span.
This means that although men die prematurely, they have less disability in their old age and are looked after in their disability-filled years by their younger wives - what I call the Tithonus effect. However, the women usually have no spouse to care for them in their long, frail old age.
Let us now look at the effect of longevity on gross domestic product (GDP). Here, we do not have local data but we can make deductions from other countries. The Russian mortality crisis in the first half of 1990s, which led to a decline in Russian life expectancy from 70 to 65 years, was estimated to have resulted in a loss of about 0.3 per cent of GDP annually.
Researchers have also estimated that the gain in life expectancy of six years in the United States over a 20-year period from 1970 to 1990 yielded a remarkable US$57 trillion, in 1992 dollars.
Recent studies from Harvard show that a 10-year gain in life expectancy translates into as much as 1 per cent increase in GDP. Research has also shown that each additional year of increase in life expectancy increases economic output by 4 per cent, even after controlling for work experience and education.
All these studies suggest that longevity is a boost to GDP, and a concerted biomedical approach towards promoting men's health and well-being in later life is worthwhile.
Further, a longer prospective lifespan can change behaviour during the life cycle itself, resulting in a longer working life or higher savings for retirement.
Even allowing for age structure effects, longer life expectancy is strongly associated with higher national savings rates across countries, which suggests that there is a strong savings effect with longevity, according to research from Harvard. Gender gap

Having established that there is a definite gender gap in longevity, should we just accept it and cap it with the platitude that men are from Mars and women are from Venus? Of course not.
So what can be done?
First, we must recognise the problem and get the facts straight. We must focus on changes in lifestyle, behaviours and attitudes towards men's health. The medical school programme should emphasise gender-sensitive health care.
Second, all boys and men should receive health advice and information appropriate to their experience and concerns. There is a need to identify the sources of cultural differences among the different ethnic groups in Singapore and tailor public health campaigns to specific causes in cultural groups. There is a great need to run national-level screening programmes for men's health issues - for example, prostate cancer.
Third, wives can play a part in educating their husbands. Dr D. Umberson from Vanderbilt University found that wives had a beneficial influence on their partner's health behaviour. Thus, one means of attempting to improve men's health is through women. Women are more likely to adopt health-seeking behaviour and, as carers, they impart their knowledge and skills to the males in their families.
Here, I would like to say a few words about a non-profit organisation called Wings - Women's Initiative for Ageing Successfully. This organisation was started for women above the age of 40 to educate them in areas of preventive health, financial security and contribution to family and community - health, wealth and happiness, in short. In just 2 1/2 years, 4,000 women have become members of Wings.
It should be possible to start an organisation like Wings for men to educate them on successful ageing, but it is unlikely that men will join the organisation in any great number. Men prefer to join networking organisations like the Rotary Club, and business and sports groups.
However, the women who have joined Wings can influence positively the health-seeking behaviour of the men in their lives through what they have learnt at the organisation.
Fourth, the broader evolutionary perspective also offers opportunities. Far from suggesting that men are doomed to die young, an evolutionary approach recognises how patterns of male competition change as social structures change. Modern lifestyles are actually exacerbating the gap between male and female life expectancies.
Recent suggestions that public policy decisions should aim at human happiness as well as GDP are welcome, and they may offer opportunities for structural changes that should decrease the disproportionate mortality rate for men.
The implications of this approach are far-reaching. Men represent approximately half of any country's population and the welfare of entire social and economic communities (including that of women) stands to benefit.
The writer is president of Wings (Women's Initiative for Ageing Successfully)







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Men & rivalry

Men generally invest less in their children than women do, and as a result may compete more vigorously with each other for potential mates. This rivalry could be what drives them to take greater risks, with the result that men have evolved greater reproductive success at the expense of longevity. The same may be true for chimpanzees and even fruit flies. Women & disability
Women live longer lives but according to data from WHO for Singapore (2006), women have 12 disability- filled years in their old age as compared to nine disability-filled years for men with their shorter life span. This means that although men die prematurely, they have less disability in their old age and are looked after in their disability-filled years by their younger wives, what I call the Tithonus effect.

 

[makapaaa]

>>>this pattern is similar in most other developing countries<<<

BEST PAID ministers in the world, but compare with Timbutku again!

 

[makapaaa]

No mention of the health hazards of NS again!

 

[DerekLeung]

Old gecko threatened to give all his money to charity and expose him to Singaporeans if he do not change and his son will get not one cent !