Human beings' pursuit of longevity can be described as a long time from ancient times to the present, and the various stories that have emerged due to the pursuit of longevity are varied.
In ancient times, men were at the pinnacle of their power, and they did everything they could in pursuit of longevity.
According to rumors, after Qin Shi Huang ruled the world and made many outstanding contributions, he suddenly began to obsessively pursue immortality in his later years, in order to be able to obtain the elixir of immortality, he can be said to find ways to find talents in the world, and the famous pit Confucian incident occurred because Qin Shi Huang was deceived by a Confucian named Lu Sheng, and became angry.
In 219 BC, Xu Fu, a famous Fangshi of the Qin Dynasty, told Qin Shi Huang that there were three immortals living on three peninsulas in Shandong, holding the elixir in their hands, and Qin Shi Huang believed it, so he immediately sent Xu Fu to find the elixir for him, Xu Fu embarked on the road of finding the medicine, never to return, and before Huan Zheng died, he never saw the elixir again...
Although the quest for immortality failed, the story of mankind's pursuit of immortality did not end there... Emperor Wudi of Han took the old road of the first emperor to Penglai to find immortals; Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, initially mocked Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wudi of Han, indicating that he would never be like the first two, but in his old age, he died of poisoning by taking the elixir of immortality...
And these stories are not only happening in the mainland, there are many similar stories abroad.
Although men are so committed to the pursuit of longevity, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), it can be found that women live an average of 5-7 years longer than men, which is almost without exception in all countries and regions! Why is all this?
Do women generally live longer than men? Can men surpass by castration?
(1) Eunuchs
Eunuchs are a product of the feudal era, with an extremely large number, we are all familiar with this character, they are castrated with male organs, lack male characteristics, mainly work in the palace, serve the palace nobility, so does he live longer than other normal men?
According to historical records, in the feudal era, the average life expectancy of eunuchs was 14 years longer than that of other normal men.
To draw such a conclusion is actually very arbitrary!
In ancient times, eunuchs worked in the palace, and although they were engaged in the work of serving, they were not at all difficult compared to the extremely heavy hard work that other men engaged in in order to survive at the same time!
The work of eunuchs is equivalent to the current state office, an iron rice bowl job, compared with those poor people who have suffered from famine and displacement, their happiness in life is actually very high, they only need to do their job well, they can eat and drink without worry.
When ordinary people are full of food and not the next meal, and are attacked by the pressure of survival, they can already end the day's work and sleep peacefully!
You know, the food in the palace is the best of the best, and the eunuchs eat even if it is only the scraps in it, it is a treasure that ordinary people cannot taste.
And its diet is usually very light, which is very good for its health!
Therefore, even if eunuchs live longer than ordinary men, it is not possible to conclude that men can live longer through castration!
Compared to eunuchs, shemales also have no male organs, but they need to take drugs to maintain hormone balance in the body, and need to bear the troubles of survival pressure and other aspects, and the average life expectancy is not more than fifty years old... Obviously, longevity is affected by many factors!
(2) Male sheep that live longer after castration
In New Zealand, male sheep are usually castrated so that the flock can live a little longer.
After this custom was known to local scientists, they always wanted to find out whether it was a real scientific basis or just misinformation.
So they focused on a sheep named Shrek, and according to local customs, castrated Shrek's male organs to find out.
Six years later, scientists went to see Shrek, this year has reached the old age of the sheep's life, they saw Shrek jumping alive, energetic, without the slightest "dying" look, and because no one repaired the wool for him, Shrek was overgrown with lush wool, the whole body looked very burly, this discovery surprised the scientists, Shrek actually obtained a longer life through castration!
The difference in the rate of aging
Why did Shrek get a long life? What is the relationship between the length of life and the speed of aging?
The answer is obvious, the faster you age, the shorter your lifespan; Conversely, the slower the aging rate, the longer the lifespan! There are many different theories about the causes of aging and the factors that affect the speed of aging, and the most respected is the theory of cellular telomeres!
(1) Telomere length difference
Our genes, which are mainly located on chromosomes, telomeres are sequences of genes that repeat at the ends of chromosomes that protect our genome.
As long as we are alive, the cells of our body will undergo mitosis all the time, and each division needs to copy the chromosomes first, and this process needs enzymes to catalyze.
However, because the enzyme responsible for replication cannot reach the end of the chromosome, the gene at the end of the chromosome cannot be completely replicated, and the telomeres come into play, providing a small amount of extra chromosomes as a buffer in case important genetic information is missing, which makes the length of the telomeres shorter!
When the length of telomeres can no longer be shortened, the cell can no longer divide, and the life span reaches the end!
Therefore, the length of telomeres determines the number of cell divisions, determines the speed of aging, and determines the length of life! In the embryonic stage, telomeres are the longest in length and cell division is the fastest; As they grow, telomeres gradually shorten and the rate of cell division slows down.
In addition to the length of telomeres affected by its own physiological factors, the environment also plays a certain role in its length. Such as radiation, haze, formaldehyde and other factors, all affect the length of telomeres.
In addition, bad lifestyle habits such as smoking, alcoholism, and frequent staying up late will also cause telomere shortening to speed up!
(2) Sex chromosome differences
We all know that women have two identical sex chromosomes XX, male chromosomes are XY, when the X chromosome has genetic mutations, and these mutations lead to induced diseases, the female other X chromosome has alleles to replace, while men will increase the incidence of unprotected X chromosomes.
A similar view has been published in Biological Letters, that is, the average life expectancy of the body with the same chromosomes will be longer, which leads to the average life expectancy of women is higher than that of men!
(3) Sex hormone differences
Male hormones secreted by men increase low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels, which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke; The estrogen secreted by women will reduce LDL levels, and the risk of disease is greatly reduced!
In addition, estrogen can stimulate the promoter of telomerase, which repairs damaged telomeres and indirectly activates other DNA repair pathways by adding telomere base pairs at the end of the telomic base.
Thus, the effect of estrogen on telomerase activation may help explain the smaller reduction in lifespan when females are heteroconytes.
(4) Differences in the immune system
With age, the white blood cells in the human body will gradually decrease, lymphocyte killing will also weaken, and the lethality of men declines faster than women, and the rate of red blood cell decline is also faster than that of women, in short, women's immune system function aging slower, longer life than men.
(5) Differences in living habits
Overall, men are more adventurous than women and tend to engage in harder, more dangerous activities that are costly to men's bodies, and men are generally less physically massive than women.
And often women pay more attention to health, higher requirements for quality of life, their lifestyle is often healthier, pay more attention to their vital signs, men are often more careless, unable to timely perceive the discomfort of the body, these details also have a certain impact on the quality of life!
This is some of the reasons why men generally have a low life expectancy and women, and the reason why Shrek is more vigorous after castration is because after castration, his body has many feminized features, and its DNA is infinitely close to the female Mianyang, so it is manifested as a longer lifespan!
How to get a long life?
(1) Healthy eating habits
To live a long life, it's crucial to develop healthy eating habits! As the saying goes, people are iron, rice is steel, and if you don't eat a meal, you are hungry and panicked!
Therefore, we must pay attention to balanced nutritional intake, eat more healthy, light foods, and avoid eating foods high in oil, salt and sugar, and excessive consumption of these foods will increase the burden on the stomach.
A healthy stomach is a sharp weapon for taking nutrients, only a healthy stomach can take nutrients in time and be healthier!
(2) Regular work and rest
Sleep is a very important thing for the human body, only to ensure sufficient sleep, the whole person will have vitality, the body is relaxed is conducive to the recovery of energy.
Regular work and rest is also essential, many contemporary people have the bad habit of "staying up late", staying up late on the body wear and tear is irreversible, so, for your health, go to bed early!
(3) Exercise more
Exercise is a very beneficial thing for the body, more exercise can improve the body's resistance, when there is a disease, people who exercise more often recover faster than people who lack exercise, and the condition is milder!
If you haven't started exercising yet, start exercising now! Pay attention to step by step, do what you can, the most important thing is to persist, develop habits, avoid not excessive, to prevent muscle strain!
(4) Regular physical examination
With the improvement of material level, everyone's economic level has also shown an upward trend, of course, all kinds of diseases are also pervasive, to develop the habit of regular physical examination, so as to treat as soon as possible, to prevent the spread of the disease!
Now various types of diseases, often seasonal, in the season is the high incidence of disease, at this time low immunity will inevitably be hit, sometimes minor diseases will develop into major diseases, so early medical treatment!
In addition, some elderly people need to regularly measure blood pressure, blood lipids, blood sugar, etc., once the prevention is not timely, it is likely to develop into coronary heart disease, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, etc., and it may be serious at that time!
The difference in the physiological structure of men and women leads to a natural difference in the average length of life.
But fortunately, our level of science and technology and medical level is constantly improving, for the treatment of various diseases there are more and more reliable solutions, once a terminal disease, now has long been overcome, the average life expectancy of human beings is also increasing, as long as you develop healthy living habits, more physical examinations, the length of life will be extended under the effort, so be optimistic!