Femme Fatal

As you’ll likely know, women generally outlive men. This is creatively known as the male-female health survival paradox. 

But nobody really knows why. Some say it’s because men are taller on average, meaning they have more cells with more chance to mutate. There’s also the fact that females have two sets of X chromosomes, rather than the male XY chromosomes, which means they have double copies of every gene and are more likely to have healthy versions to continue life. Then there’s the increased likelihood for men to gravitate towards more damaging lifestyle behaviours like drinking, smoking and the like. 

Regardless of the reason, facts are facts; women outlive men. Take a 2017 study of 3,000 centenarians (people aged 100 or older) for example. 85% of those over the age of 100 were women. Interestingly, though not particularly related, women who gave birth in their forties were 4-5 times more likely to reach 100 than their peers who gave birth earlier.

In the UK, the average woman will live four years longer than the average man – 82.8 years compared to 78.8 years. Remarkably, though, according to King’s Fund data, women spend a higher proportion of their life in poor health than men do – 20.1 years for women (24%) compared to 16.4 years for men (21%)

For the three aggregated years 2020–22, although male life expectancy was 78.8 years, average healthy male life expectancy was only 62.4 years – ie, 16.4 of those years (21%) would have been spent in poor health. Female life expectancy was 82.8 years, of which 20.1 years (24%) would have been spent in poor health. Although females live an average of four years longer than males, they seem to spend a higher proportion and more years of their lives in poor health.

So why on earth are women spending more time of their longer lives ill than their more bearded counterparts?

Geography plays a monumental part in the quality and duration of life. A woman from the Orkney Islands can expect an extra TWENTY YEARS of life in good health than a woman in Blackpool. It’s a similar story for men, if you’re born in Buckinghamshire you get 68 years, but if you were born in Blackpool you can expect 53.

If you want to check your own area’s data, you can do so here.

Living in affluent areas means a greater likelihood of access to well-funded public services, and a lower chance of obesity, smoking and drug use. Somewhat expected, but worth mentioning.

The disparity between men and women with regard to healthcare is pretty astounding. 

First, let’s go to heart attacks. Perhaps you think of them as being an issue predominantly for men, but they aren’t. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for women globally.

With that in mind, a 2016 study of 560,000 people over 9 years found that women initially had a 59% greater chance of misdiagnosis for the most severe type of heart attack.

An explanation for these misdiagnoses is simply that doctors expect women to exhibit the same heart attack symptoms as men. But they don’t, “Women are actually more likely to experience breathlessness, fatigue nausea and what feels like indigestion than pain in the chest and down their left arm.”

As the saying goes, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But historically medical tests have been conducted on men far more often than women – and sadly funding for male-specific issues dwarfs female-specific ones.

In 2020, for example, only 1% of healthcare research and innovation was invested in female-specific conditions beyond oncology, according to McKinsey.

The stats go on and on. Five times more research goes into erectile dysfunction — which affects 19% of men — than into premenstrual syndrome, which affects 90% of women.

And it’s not even just human trials. In 2021, over 80% of drug safety and efficacy preclinical studies were conducted solely on male mice.

The impact of this can’t really be overstated… The assumption that trials on a man will generate the same results for women just isn’t true. Typically women weigh less than men, and studies have shown that women had higher concentrations of prescribed drugs in their bodies and it took longer for the drug to be eliminated.

2023 data from 86 trials found that, in more than 90% of cases, women experience worse side effects than men – overall they were found to experience adverse reactions to the drugs nearly twice as often as men.

There was even a gap between ‘77 and ‘93 – in the US where adult females couldn’t take part in clinical trials. Given that the US conducts nearly double the amount of clinical research as any other country, this gap (and the general disparity that remains to this day) has led, says Dr Janine Clayton, to us “literally know[ing] less about every aspect of female biology compared to male biology.”

Typically our musings aim to offer a solution – this one’s more intended to highlight a disparity that’s seemingly, literally, manmade. This article wasn’t originally intended to focus on the gap between male and female health outcomes, but the data rabbit hole was too deep and shocking to ignore.

Next time you go to share the research you stumble upon mid-scroll, remember the conclusions they draw may not have universal application.

Given that the health gap between the two genders is larger in the UK than in any other G20 country, more needs to be done to address the systemic misbalance in treatment between men and women.