Genes that act late in life could explain why women have poorer health than men in older age, according to a study.
Scientists have long wondered why older women are less healthy than older men, given that men at any given age are more likely to die than women (a puzzle known as the “male-female, health-survival paradox”).
The answer, according to scientists from the University of Exeter in the UK, is ‘intralocus sexual conflict’ - genes that benefit one sex but harm the other.