The eunuchs who lived in Korea several centuries ago outnumbered the rest of their compatriots . It follows that the male hormones that castrated men lack shorten the lives of males , as Kyung-Jin Min and colleagues at Inha University conclude in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology .
Specifically, the records reveal that those Koreans who had lost their reproductive organs in accidents or who had voluntarily chosen to be castrated in order to be allowed access to the palace, lived on average between 14 and 19 years longer than the rest of the men in the city. epoch. In addition, of the 81 eunuchs studied, 3 became centenarians, a life expectancy that is rare today and was less so a few years ago. In fact, researchers estimate that the percentage of centenarians among Korean eunuchs is 130 times that of today's inhabitants of developed countries . In the rest of the individuals who lived in the palace, this increase in longevity is not observed, so everything indicates that it was not the living conditions but the hormonal change caused by the lack of sexual organs that increased their life expectancy.
The finding could provide important clues to also understand why the longevity of men and women is different , say the study authors.
