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June
5, 2007:
Why Illness & Dirt Aren't Really So Bad II
Interview
with Marlene Zuk, author of
Riddled With Life
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Mike
Carruthers:
Statistically,
women live years longer than men.
Marlene Zuk:
And people attribute this to a variety of things; that
there's higher smoking rates among men, that women are less likely
to take risks in terms of riding motorcycles and getting into
accidents or killing each other in bar fights.
Biologist Marlene
Zuk, author of the book Riddled
With Life says those things may be true but -
The smoking and
the bar fights can't explain why you see that same disparity
between male and female mortality in lots and lots and lots
of other animals. Almost always among mammals there's this tendency
for males to die sooner and to also be more susceptible to disease.
And what biologists
think that is, says Marlene is that males and female mammals
have different reproductive strategies.
Where males get
a higher return on going for broke and being very competitive
and inseminating a lot of females, if you're in a species where
that happens. Whereas females are going to get more out of being
in it for the long haul. And they're systems have been selected
to be a little bit more resistant to disease.
And research
shows that the kind of food we eat reflects the likelihood that
we'll become ill.
Places where
people eat spicier food like Asia, South America also tend to
be places where either bacterial contamination of food for spoilage
or even potentially other types of diseases are more prevalent.
Because a lot of those spices either kill bacteria or help you
deal with the effects of them - so spicy food can actually be
good for you.
At somethingyoushouldknow.net
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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