Competition for a mate shortens men's lives: study

Men who face plenty of competition to find a mate have slightly shorter lives than those who don't.

New research shows that gender imbalance, when men outnumber women, affects male longevity by an average of about three months.

Although the link between gender ratio and longevity has been shown in animals, the study published in the journal Demography is thought to be the first to show the impact in humans.

"If you're having a hard time finding a mate, it winds up affecting your body and how long you live," said Professor Nicho-las Christakis of Harvard Medical School.

The researchers studied data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which tracked the long-term health of 4,183 men who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, and from information about more than 7 million men enrolled in Medicare, the government's medical program for the elderly.

"You might get married, but you might have to delay marriage. ... You may have had less opportunity to get that benefit because you were forced to marry later," Christakis added.

Reuters