Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Geroscience. 2019 Jun;41(3):267-273. doi: 10.1007/s11357-019-00081-3. Epub 2019 Jun 26.
Women live longer than men in virtually all circumstances. However, a more common pattern among animals is that one sex lives longer under some conditions, the other lives longer under other conditions. In laboratory mice, interventions that extend longevity are surprisingly often sex-specific in their effects. Understanding these conditional sex differences could provide mechanistic insight into how longevity could be modulated in humans. One way that longevity can be consistently enhanced is by inhibiting reproduction or eliminating the capacity to reproduce. Thus, there appears to be a mechanistic link between gonadal activity and longevity. There also appears to be a mechanistic link between some types of neuroendocrine signaling and longevity. Combining these two observations suggest that communication between the brain and gonad is a ripe avenue for further exploring longevity-assurance mechanisms. Also, because the timing and activity of specific brain-gonad endocrine differs between the sexes, neuroendocrine linkages between the brain and gonad, particularly among the less obvious hormones such as activin and inhibin, could provide additional insight into mechanisms of sex differences in aging.
在几乎所有情况下，女性的寿命都比男性长。然而，在动物中更常见的模式是，一种性别在某些条件下寿命更长，另一种性别在其他条件下寿命更长。在实验室小鼠中，延长寿命的干预措施在其效果上出人意料地具有性别特异性。了解这些条件性性别差异可以为理解如何在人类中调节长寿提供机制上的见解。一种可以持续增强寿命的方法是抑制生殖或消除生殖能力。因此，性腺活动和长寿之间似乎存在一种机制联系。神经内分泌信号和长寿之间似乎也存在一种机制联系。将这两个观察结果结合起来表明，大脑和性腺之间的通信是进一步探索长寿保障机制的一个成熟途径。此外，由于特定脑-性腺内分泌的时间和活动在两性之间存在差异，因此大脑和性腺之间的神经内分泌联系，特别是在激活素和抑制素等不太明显的激素中，可能为衰老过程中的性别差异机制提供更多的见解。
