Does Having a Father Shorten Your Life?

By JOSEPH BROWNSTEIN
ABC News Medical Unit
Dec. 2, 2009

For most of human history, people have sought tricks to extend their lives, but new research suggests that one key may be not having a father.

Researchers in Japan created 13 mice using DNA material from two mothers, and compared their…

Researchers in Japan created 13 mice using DNA material from two mothers, and compared their lifespans with mice born under normal circumstances. They found that the mice with no father lived roughly 842 days, with control mice living 186 fewer days, on average, findings that suggested a benefit to not having a father.

(Getty Images)

Researchers in Japan created 13 mice using DNA material from two mothers, and compared their lifespans with mice born under normal circumstances. They found that the mice with no father lived roughly 842 days, with control mice living 186 fewer days, on average, findings that suggested a benefit to not having a father.

“We have known for some time that women tend to live longer than men in almost all countries worldwide, and that these sex-related differences in longevity also occur in many other mammalian species,” said Tomohiro Kono, one of the study authors from the department of bioscience at Tokyo University of Agriculture, in a statement. “However, the reason for this difference was unclear and, in particular, it was not known whether longevity in mammals was controlled by the genome composition of only one or both parents.”

In their paper, the researchers noted: “Our results further suggested sex differences in longevity originating at the genome level, implying that the sperm genome has a detrimental effect on longevity in mammals.”

DNAWellnessinfo.com Resource:  http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MensHealthNews/father-shorten-life/story?id=9221334