HomeScience and ResearchScientific ResearchStudy Suggests Neutered Men May Live Longer

Study Suggests Neutered Men May Live Longer

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Neutered men may have a higher life expectancy than others. This is what a study from the University of Otago in New Zealand suggests, after realizing that neutered rams live 60% longer than non-neutered males. The DNA of these mammals ages more slowly.

Victoria Sugrue, an epigeneticist at the New Zealand university, believes the results can be extrapolated to Neutered men. She and her team observed that there were differentiated patterns and rhythms in the DNA of the ewes according to their sex, and in the case of the genetic code of the rams that had been castrated there were female parts.

To calculate the biological aging of the animals, they used and calibrated an epigenetic clock adapted to sheep in view of chemical tags in the blood and on the skin. It is “a way to measure the biological age of a wide variety of mammals,” explains the head of the method, Steve Horvarth, of the University of California. He himself analyzed more than 200 species and later discovered that their bodies aged in a very similar way.

The fact that the results of the New Zealand study can be extrapolated to men gains strength if they are crossed with those of a 2015 study in which two South Korean universities analyzed the genealogical history of the imperial court of the Chosun dynasty, where men were castrated. 

Those castrated between the years 1392 and 1910 during childhood lived between 14 and 10 years longer than the intact men of the same estate. Their longevity was superior to the members of the South Korean royal family.

The suspicion that castration prolongs the life of man is also reflected in the history of Chinese feudal dynasties. 

According to the Registry of lineages of emperors, queens and princesses of China, the average life expectancy of Chinese emperors was only 40 years while the average life expectancy of the eunuchs who served them was 71 years , published MedChina.

Tim Hore, the head of the New Zealand study, argues that his research may be useful when it comes to analyzing the mechanisms associated with the rate at which men and women age.

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