Gender Differences in Keys to Longevity

While quality sleep and a healthy diet are basic tenets of the anti-aging lifestyle, the extent to which these factors contribute to an extended lifespan may differ between men and women.  Mark L. Wahlqvist, from Monash University (Australia), and colleagues investigated the ways that diet contributed to the relationship between sleep quality and mortality, among a group of 1,865 men and women, ages 65 years and older, enrolled in the Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan.  The researchers observed that sleep played a more important role in men’s mortality than women’s. Among women, those who ate a varied diet that included foods rich in vitamin B6 could still live long lives despite poor sleep habits.  Observing that: “Sleep quality played a more important role in mortality for men than for women,” the study authors write that: “In women, [Vitamin B6 levels] predicts mortality more than sleep does.”