Neither gender is universally "more prone to disease"; rather, men often face higher risks for certain conditions like cardiovascular and some cancers (e.g., lung, liver), while women are more prone to others like autoimmune diseases, depression, and osteoporosis, influenced by biology, hormones, genetics, lifestyle, and healthcare-seeking behaviors. Globally, males often experience a greater overall disease burden and shorter life expectancy, partly due to riskier behaviors and less healthcare engagement, notes this Oncology News Australia article, this Scimex article, Better Health Channel article, and this BMJ article.
They compared disease rates and differences in diagnosis and treatment, and found that males had higher rates of disease and mortality compared to females—and in some countries, men were less likely to seek out health care and stick to treatment.
A century ago, there were less than two years between men's and women's life expectancies in the United States. Today, that gender gap has almost tripled, with men dying 5.3 years earlier than women in 2023.
However, when it comes to health, men are biologically weaker. Men are more likely to experience chronic health conditions earlier than women and have shorter lives. In almost all countries around the world, women live longer than men.
Women are better at fighting off infection but are more likely to develop an autoimmune condition, with 80 percent of autoimmune disease cases diagnosed in females. Men are more prone to heart disease and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's.
Men are more likely to have heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, whereas women are more likely to have arthritis and depression, and there is considerable variation between countries in the differences between the sexes.
Scientists have observed that female individuals can clear infection more quickly than males and have lower mortality after infection across all age groups, including infants and even before birth.
Women reported more worry than men on two measures of the tendency to worry, as well as more worries about lack of confidence issues. Women also reported a more negative problem orientation and engaging in more thought suppression, a type of cognitive avoidance.
Women tend to live longer than men. In 2021, this difference amounted to a 5-year gap in global life expectancy: the average life expectancy was 73.8 years for women versus 68.4 years for men.
Prevalence of Mental Health Issues in Women
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), women are nearly twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression, and they are also more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men in the United States, accounting for 25 percent of all male deaths. Various factors, including smoking, high cholesterol levels and obesity, can cause heart disease.
The results revealed that men fall in love, on average, about one month earlier than women, women experience romantic love slightly more intensely, and women think about their loved ones more than men.
By age 83—the time essentially half of women die—two-thirds of their husbands will have died. An even split would be 24.1% of each gender, but men have an extra 18.8% dead. If you take the ratio of their deaths, you end up with your answer: 64% of men die before their wives.
Templeton has done extensive studies on gender differences in health. The female sex hormone estrogen slows down how fast a virus multiplies, Templeton says. This may lead to fewer symptoms. The flu virus may not spread as quickly in women because of estrogen and how the female body reacts to it.
Studies of experimentally induced pain have produced a very consistent pattern of results, with women exhibiting greater pain sensitivity, enhanced pain facilitation and reduced pain inhibition compared with men, though the magnitude of these sex differences varies across studies.
10 Most Common Health Conditions in Men
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), on a global scale, women live an average of six to eight years longer than their male counterparts. The pitfall here is that men's appearances tend to age more slowly than that of females. Is it any wonder then that most anti-aging skin care lines target females?
Exploratory analyses showed significant gender interactions with age and ethnicity. Overall, these findings suggest that women are, on average, happier in singlehood than men.
It has long been theorized that men and women use (im)politeness differently. For example, women are said to be more polite, more passive in the way they interact through their language use than men.
Research has suggested that women express emotions more frequently than men on average. Multiple researchers have found that women cry more frequently, and for longer durations than men at similar ages. The gender differences appear to peak in the most fertile years.
The #1 worst habit for anxiety isn't singular, but avoidance (procrastination), poor sleep, and negative thought patterns (like catastrophizing) are top contenders, creating vicious cycles where anxiety fuels these behaviors, and the behaviors, in turn, worsen anxiety by preventing healthy coping and creating more stress. Other significant habits include excessive caffeine, poor diet, too much screen time, and social withdrawal, all disrupting the body's ability to manage stress effectively.
Regarding a range of physical threats, women were more likely to express “great fear” than their male counterparts.
The higher life expectancy of women is often attributed to the fact that women generally eat healthier and pay more attention to their health. On average, women visit the doctor earlier and more often than men, generally drink less alcohol, use less tobacco and pay more attention to a healthy diet [Griswold et al.
“It's our immune response, and the research shows that males have a heightened response that summons cells to the site of infection, which contributes to the overall feeling of sickness.”
Immune status has been associated with race, with blacks having higher levels of immunoglobulin A and CD8 cell counts than whites. Furthermore, several studies observed that whites and blacks living in the same geographical region had different levels of γ-globulin, a marker of immune disruption.