#23: 👵🏼 Women Outlive Men, But At What Cost?
Women live longer but generally have poorer health than men of the same age
Friends,
Today is International Women’s Day, so I’ve focused this week’s newsletter on women’s health and its connection to longevity and psychedelics.
Enjoy!
💬 In this note:
👵🏼 Women Outlive Men, But At What Cost?
🌈 What We Know About The Effect Of Psychedelics On Women’s Health
📚 The Spark Factor
👵🏼 Women Outlive Men, But At What Cost?
Women live longer than men in most areas of the world. The United Nations World Population Aging 2019 Report shows that women’s life expectancy exceeds that of men by 4.8 years, globally.
The female advantage is largest in Latin America and the Caribbean (6.5 years), Europe and Northern America (6.1 years), and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (5.3 years).
At the most advanced age, more than 110 years, women far outnumber men. Of the 53 supercentenarians (age 110-119) that were alive in 2015, 51 were female. The oldest person ever recorded with a valid birth record was Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years old. By contrast, the longest-lived man was Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to age 116.
While male centenarians (age greater than 100) are less in number than their female centenarians, male centenarians tend to have significantly better cognition and physical function than their female counterparts. Centenarian women tend to have a poorer health status, and they are considered more frail.
The fact that women live longer but in poorer health is known as the “male-female health survival” paradox. The paradox is likely due to multiple causes, including genetics, hormones, immune system responses and disease patterns, behavioral differences such as risk-taking and reluctance to seek and comply with medical treatment, non-participation and under-reporting of health problems, and delayed seeking of treatment by men.
A woman's risk of developing chronic illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, rises as menopause approaches. After menopause, women's health begins to deteriorate, and onset of menopause is strongly related to longevity. Extending reproductive health would improve overall health for women
A review published in 2021 explores geroscience approaches to maintaining long-term ovarian fitness. Caloric Restriction (CR), rapamycin and metformin are all promising candidates to improve reproductive longevity.
CR has been studied for decades in a variety of species (mostly mice) and extends lifespan by altering the rate of biological aging. Studies of CR in mice indicated that CR increased ovarian reserve, improved oocyte quality and prolonged the reproductive life span in mammals.
Rapamycin is a drug used to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, and many studies have shown it increases lifespans of male and female mice. A recent study showed that short-term rapamycin treatment in young and middle-aged female mice increased ovarian lifespan.
Metformin has been used to control type-2 diabetes for decades. It has been shown in animal experiments to slow aging, and because of its proven safety over decades and low cost, it is a likely first candidate for gerontological interventions. The American Federation for Aging Research is currently fundraising for the TAME (Targeting Aging with Metformin) clinical trials to test metformin as a safe and effective intervention against several age-related diseases.
More research is needed on metformin and female reproductive longevity, but metformin has been shown to safely and effectively improve ovulation rates in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and has been shown to be safe during the first trimester of pregnancy.
These are promising interventions and I hope to see more data testing these methods. It is imperative to increase the healthspan for women, especially since the longevity that women enjoy over men is associated with such poorer health status.
🌈 What We Know About The Effect Of Psychedelics On Women’s Health
Women’s health is significantly under-researched, and this is no different in the field of psychedelics. Although women are required to participate in clinical trials, not many of those trials are focused on what is happening specifically within a woman’s body. Natasha Antropova, author of the HealthyHer newsletter and I teamed up to co-author this article and tell you what we found out.
➡ CLICK HERE ⬅ for the long form article published in Psychedelic Health.
TLDR;
Gender differences in the effects of psychedelics are typically not significant, with the exception of depression, where women reported higher improvements than men.
No concrete link between female hormones and psychedelic compounds has been established, but estrogen can increase the density of 5-HT2A binding sites in areas of the brain responsible for mood, mental state, emotion, cognition, and behavior.
The use of psychedelics as a treatment for eating disorders is still uncertain, but studies show promising results that require further exploration.
Symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a severe mood disorder that affects millions of women worldwide, may be alleviated by ketamine therapy by activating estrogen receptors and increasing glutamate levels, which are uniquely connected to major depression.
Ketamine therapy may be preventative of postpartum depression for women with schedule C-Section births.
Some mothers are turning to microdosing psychedelics to deal with the stress and anxiety of motherhood. Many report positive experiences and benefits including more patience, better management of their emotions and enhanced well-being.
More research is needed on the potential benefits of psychedelics for women’s health issues.
📚 Book of the Week
The Spark Factor by Dr. Molly Maloof
4/5 Stars
Dr. Molly is a biohacker and physician. Her book is filled with cutting-edge energy-boosting insights uniquely tailored for women.
⚡️ Check This Out
HUMAN the movie.
Filmmaker and artist, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, spent three years gathering stories from 2,000 people in 60 different countries in a quest to uncover what it is that makes us human.
Through this project, he explores the universal experiences that connect us all, from struggles with poverty, war, and homophobia to moments of love and happiness. The resulting collection of deeply personal and emotional accounts offers a glimpse into the human condition and highlights our commonalities as a species.
With the help of a dedicated team of translators, journalists, and cameramen, Yann presents a powerful narrative that encourages us to reflect on our shared humanity.