That’s good, because Henry VII was often described as slender and physically unremarkable.
While we’re noting men fathering children at advanced ages, it might be worth also noting that genetic abnormalities can increase with paternal age:
Haemophilia in European royalty - Wikipedia.
Of course we’re talking about two separate issues: people aging past their ideal reproductive periods, and male people reproducing at an age that is arguably past their ideal reproductive periods.
I remain curious about the comparisons with other mammals that experience menopause: for example, the statistics on average lifespan for those who get to that age. A comparison for the females who do experience that menopause, and males of corresponding age, would be interesting.
And why do dogs die so soon after their ‘ideal reproductive years,’ anyway, when arguably they are like humans in being “pack animals”? A lot of our speculation in this thread should apply to dogs (and wolves), too—but apparently it doesn’t.
While it is true there is no gene for death, there are several biological degredation mechanisms that contribute to what we call aging. I was reading up on the topeic of life extension, sorry I don’t recall all the details. But something like eight processes cause aging, and scientists are working on how to fix all of them, including not just blocking them from occurring, but reversing them.
Telemeres on DNA providing limits on cell division is probably the most well-known. Plaques building up in tissues like the brain is another.
Anyway, that’s a hijack, but the processes that lead to deterioration mostly don’t occur quickly, but take time. Thus there is a current hard limit on human lifespan beyond talking about life expectancy. Life expectancy is the statistical model based on all means of death. Life span is this aging factor separate from acute infection or trauma.
So to put it into the topic of this thread, the question arises what drives menopause, and what controls exist on male reproduction? How are either of those linked to this theory of aging mechanisms?
Another thought - I vaguely recall reading that women are born with a finite number of egg cells (or tather, the follicles, in the ovaries) and while there are a lot, the number declines with age, not just from releasing an egg - at menopause none are left.
So I guess the question is, what mechanism depletes the number of follicles over time? Why do they depelete completely well before death? (And presumably then, the lack of follicles causes the ovaries to stop producing certain hormones?)
Males and females share the vast percentage of their genes. If one has genes that contribute to a long lifespan, then the other likely does too.
Well, for a very long time it was exactly like that. There was a time when people who reached forty were considered long in the tooth. That was because people didn’t live much better than animals. Now, in comparison, we eat much better food, we have something called health care, and we understand nutrition. We lose far fewer people to warfare, disease, malnutrition, etc, than we did years ago.
Obviously we also have major difference in how those genes are regulated and expressed leading to significantly different forms and physiologies. IF having males live to older ages in the tribe was a net drain on survival of progeny and progeny’s progeny any mutation that killed off males in middle age would be selected for.
For instance, killer whales, which also experience menopause, have very different life expectancies for males and females.
Killer Whale | NOAA Fisheries.
The average lifespan for male killer whales is about 30 years, but they can live up to at least 60 years. Females typically live about 50 years, but can live up to at least 90 years in the wild.
…
Killer whales, beluga whales, narwhals, short-finned pilot whales, and humans are the only known species that go through menopause.
This is full of modern mythology.
In most non-agricultural societies, once one survived childhood there was a good chance to live into one’s sixties and beyond.
Most people who lived in agricultural societies suffered from the effects of a monotonous protein-poor diet and continuous heavy labor, so very generally speaking, yes, forty could be quite old. Still is true today is plenty of the world.
People living in intact fertile ecosystems ate a more various and nutritious assortment of foods than we do now. That’s just another modern myth.
People didn’t live almost as terribly as animals (what animals? tree shrews? iguanas?) They lived like human beings, in cooperative societies. As they do now. And that is why they live long past reproductive age. Because we pass down knowledge from elders, and that is where our hope of survival is. Children aren’t plunked down in the forest shortly after weaning and bound away, fully equipped. Even a thirty year old, in a traditional society, is still learning from their elders, and will until they become one themselves, when they in turn will become the repositories of knowledge.
And the elderly husbands might not have been doing that much of the actual fathering of “their” children anyway. The young wife’s clandestine combo of old wealthy husband/young healthy lover is a very common matrimonial theme in many traditions.
Apparently ovarian follicular degeneration (atresia) is actually still not that well understood scientifically:
Don’t ask me to understand or explain what any of that means in detail, but I can pretty much make out that its basic message is “we don’t really know, because it’s quite complicated”.
Some chance, not counting medical issues, malnutrition, war, accidents etc. But yeah, a much better chance than living until puberty.