A provocative article published today in The Guardian:

Men and other mammals live longer if they are castrated, says researcher

Cat Bohannon tells Hay festival audience it is not known why men go through life ‘smuggling two little death nuggets’

Ella Creamer (https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ella-creamer)

The Guardian

Fri 31 May 2024

Whether it is the fountain of youth or the elixir of life, men have travelled the world looking for the key to increasing their longevity.

They should be looking a bit closer to home, according to one leading researcher – although after they do, they might end up taking the years God intended for them.

When it comes to increasing the lifespan of any male mammal, “there is one way you can intervene”: castration.

Cat Bohannon, the celebrated author of Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... non-review), said men went through life “smuggling two little death nuggets”, with research suggesting an orchiectomy can lend a few more precious years.

Speaking at the Hay festival (https://www.theguardian.com/books/guardian-hay-festival) on Friday, Bohannon said castration was a “way to make male mammals live longer”. This effect was observed in American men in the mid-20th century who were institutionalised, usually because of mental illness, and castrated, and in Korean eunuchs. The castrated men lived longer than their “regularly balled peers”.

“You can castrate it. Cut off its balls. Don’t try this at home,” added Bohannon, a researcher with a PhD from Columbia University in the evolution of narrative and cognition.

While it used to be thought that the average lifespan discrepancy was behavioural – “dumb boys doing dumb boy stuff” – it in fact “seems to have something deeply to do with the immune system and cellular repair”, she said. Males “get more infections” across their lifespan and “more cancer, and the prognoses in many cases tend to be a bit worse”.

A 2012 study (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19699266) published in Current Biology found that the average lifespan of 81 eunuchs born between 1556 and 1861 was 70 years, which was 14.4–19.1 years longer than the lifespan of non-castrated men of similar socioeconomic status. Researchers concluded that the study “supports the idea that male sex hormones decrease the lifespan of men”.

“So why is this? Why are so many men smuggling two little death nuggets?” Bohannon said. “I’m afraid we don’t really know. A lot of good science is being done in this space.”

Bohannon said that after discussing “killer balls” on The Daily Show with Sarah Silverman, she got “very intimate” questions from men about their “testicular situation”. “I’m now ball chick, it seems,” she said.

Bohannon also told a Hay audience that “someday we’re going to have an artificial womb”, though it may not be for hundreds of years, and that it would raise ethical questions.

“Let’s be really utopian about this shit, OK. Let’s say it’s available to everyone, it’s not just a rich woman thing, it’s not just a white woman thing – whatever that means hundreds of years out – does it then become ever ethical to ask a person with a womb to become pregnant if it can be done outside of a body?”

The technology would take a long time to develop, she said, because “it’s not simply a bag in which one has a baby, it’s an entire female body. Whenever a mammal is pregnant, that entire body is pregnant.

“There are knock-on effects throughout the system, many of which have long-evolved to influence what’s going on in that womb – immunological agents crossing the placental barrier, et cetera. So that means we have to know a hell of a lot more about female bodies to try and build a fake one.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/art ... researcher

Interesting, although probably nothing new to those of us that have been reading stuff on EA for a while.... The thought that occurs to me is to wonder what the effect might be on the UK media and so forth in light of the nasty treatment of the E Maker trial and general anti-trans attitude to have an article that is at least sort of favorable in what I understand is one of the more 'respectable' UK newspapers...

WheelyFixed

I do wonder if the reason institutionalised castrated men seem to exist (it might not merit being called a life) longer is that they're not allowed to do any of the things that contribute to a shorter lifespan for men. It was often (though not always) a very safe existence, but not a particularly fulfilling one. Most of the men who would elect to be castrated when it wasn't a dire medical necessity are older men who have had their sexual life - they've been married, had their children, and it's in their 50s that their testicles become a source of bother.

HumanFly (imported) wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2024 4:52 am I do wonder if the reason institutionalised castrated men seem to exist (it might not merit being called a life) longer is that they're not allowed to do any of the things that contribute to a shorter lifespan for men. It was often (though not always) a very safe existence, but not a particularly fulfilling one. Most of the men who would elect to be castrated when it wasn't a dire medical necessity are older men who have had their sexual life - they've been married, had their children, and it's in their 50s that their testicles become a source of bother.

Go back and re-read the 6th paragraph of the original post. It address the nature vs. nurture or, alternately, men doing stupid men things castrated men don't do, question.

HumanFly (imported) wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2024 4:52 am I do wonder if the reason institutionalised castrated men seem to exist (it might not merit being called a life) longer is that they're not allowed to do any of the things that contribute to a shorter lifespan for men. It was often (though not always) a very safe existence, but not a particularly fulfilling one. Most of the men who would elect to be castrated when it wasn't a dire medical necessity are older men who have had their sexual life - they've been married, had their children, and it's in their 50s that their testicles become a source of bother.

While limited as a sample, both in size and probable 'sampling bias' (i.e. respondents are people that showed up here, rather than the general public) the surveys done here on EA, and described in papers published in professional journals show that there are significant numbers of voluntary castrations at young ages, and a VERY high percentage that would have WANTED to be castrated before or close to puberty.... Considering that up until quite recently there wasn't a 'legal' (aka medically approved) way to get voluntarily fixed, or widely spread knowledge that it was even an option to consider doing outside the medically approved route, it doesn't seem to surprising that a lot of the surgeries don't happen until late in life.

Even today, under the current WPATH SOC v8 standards it is VERY difficult for a person under 18 to get surgery even w/ parental consent, etc... (I will not enter into debate about whether this is a good thing or not...)

It wasn't mentioned in the article, but there is also considerable data that EVERY other mammal studied shows that castrated males outlive their non-fixed peers (obviously this does not include individuals slaughtered for meat, etc.) - I've seen explicit mention of dogs, cats, lab rodents, sheep, and I'm sure there are plenty of others... It is not an unreasonable expectation that the same would apply to humans...

However it is worth noting that the animals are mostly all castrated pre-puberty or close to it, there is some reason to not expect as much of a lifespan bonus among those castrated post-puberty and probably any benefits will decrease the older one is before getting fixed...

WheelyFixed

Well, I have to adjust my pension then so I have enough for my retirement age which supposedly will be extended….it will be interesting to witness my advisors reaction when I tell him/her why the payout has to be extended….

Projecting results of a study of men born 1556-1861 to people today is dicey at best.

That's a good point.

But history repeats itself...

It is very useful to look back, because biologically people have not changed.

But work and work safety have changed. Medicine has changed. Hygene has changed. Etc etc.