'Castration is the key to a longer life' You first.
See title.
Scientists: 'Castration is the key to a longer life'
Bollocks boffins studying the effects of male sex hormones on life expectancy have concluded that becoming a eunuch may be the key to living a lot longer. Male members of many species, including Homo sapiens sapiens, live shorter lives than their female counterparts, and castrating some male animals will make them live longer …
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 02:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Who says the subjects had to be volunteers? For example if it were to become the standard procedure for POWs then the world would probably become a much more peaceful place shortly..."
Violence is not genetic, but you did almost come up with the answer: rapists - now there's a deserving test group.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 09:14 GMT Jedit
"rapists - now there's a deserving test group."
Except by the time you are a rapist you're already a fully functioning male, and loss of your testicles will only prevent you reproducing. As a guy I knew once said: "You've got meat and two veg. Take away the sprouts and you've still got a meal."
Go back to reading the Daily Mail.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 09:34 GMT ridley
Re: "rapists - now there's a deserving test group."
"Except by the time you are a rapist you're already a fully functioning male, and loss of your testicles will only prevent you reproducing."
Err no.
Removing the testicles and hence the majority of testosterone production will in most cases also make you unable to perform or for that matter want to perform. This is the reason why chemical castration was/is used on sex offenders by the use of anti androgens to reduce testosterone production and in some cases female hormones. See amongst others Alan Turing.
Of course this is the same cocktail as used by male to female transexuals so maybe a study of the life expectancy of that relatively large group would be informative.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 11:45 GMT Jedit
Re: "Removing the testicles ... will in most cases also make you unable to perform"
Don't compare apples and oranges. Vasectomy is no different to complete removal of the testes so far as hormone production goes, but it doesn't kill your libido or render you incapable. Chemical castration differs in that it alters your biochemistry directly, replacing the testosterone that is already present.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 07:32 GMT Killraven
Re: Quantity vs quality
Well... neither of us has quite the energy/flexibility we used to, but middle age and kids tend to do that to a person. :-)
Let's just say that, as the years pass, your definition of quality might take on a bit of a different meaning.
It is something of a relative term though, tastes vary.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 04:28 GMT badmonkey
Controls?
I know that the article says that said ball-less wonders were compared against "a similar socio-economic background to exclude genetic differences", but one still has to wonder if the sample size is enough, and if the real reason for non-threatening men with cushy jobs at the royal palace living a little longer than normal is maybe something else...
Also, there are eunuchs today, for medical reasons if nothing else. Couldn't they be studied? I wonder if medieval Asian societies are about as relevant to modern Western lifestyles as, well, medieval Asian societies.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 07:26 GMT badmonkey
Re: Controls?
Just to answer my own post. The BBC article has a little more to say on the matter
...
"Dr Kyung-Jin Min, from Inha University, told the BBC: "We also thought that different living circumstances or lifestyles of eunuchs can be attributed to the lifespan difference.
"However, except for a few eunuchs, most lived outside the palace and spent time inside the palace only when they were on duty."
Instead he thinks the data "provides compelling evidence that male sex hormone reduces male lifespan".
[contradicted by]
Dr David Clancy, from the University of Lancaster, said: "The results are persuasive, but certainly not conclusive."
He said the relatively high number of centenarians in the group suggested eliminating testosterone may have prolonged life. However, he cautioned that difference in lifestyle could have had a significant impact.
"In this case eunuchs were raised by eunuchs over generations, lifestyle differences may have been reinforced in this way.
"Castrato versus non-castrato singers are probably a better comparison, and showed no difference in lifespan. Non-castrato lived an average 65 years and both groups lived fairly cosseted lives."
...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19699266
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 08:56 GMT Great Bu
Worked out on the back of a (sticky) napkin...
Ironically, a quick calculation on the back of a napkin would seem to show that the 19 years extra life is almost exactly the amount of time I will have spent 'emtying' my boy sack by the time I die, so not only do we die younger but we will have less time to do other stuff whilst we are alive.
Still, no regrets.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 14:29 GMT JetSetJim
Re: Worked out on the back of a (sticky) napkin...
If you'll have "spent" 19 years (~10M minutes) in hand-to-gland combat, let's try and break that down:
Assume a generous 10 mins per episode, then that's 1M hand-shandies in your life.
If you are active for 50 years, that's 20K per year, or roughly 55/day.
Every day.
Let me be the first to call you a w****r, but I'm not going to arm-wrestle you to settle an argument. Or even shake your hand.
My coat is splash-proof...
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 09:47 GMT M7S
Do the Civil Servants in the study live longer
simply as they were cossetted in the palace whilst everyone else was out facing the dangers of the world, with increased exposure to violence, accidental injury, inclement weather, disease etc and probably having to labour hard for a living?
(Less seriously) A bit like today in fact. Other comparisons could be drawn about a civil service with no cohones but that would unfairly exclude the females now in the role who can also demonstrate aggression and other sterotypically male attributes. Relax sisters, I'm simply recognising your right to be equal.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 10:36 GMT Tom 38
Balls
This piece is missing the other important detail that whilst this longevity has been documented in a group of castrated Korean monks, there have been many studies on castrati, which document no longevity benefits to losing your scratchings.
Castrati lived fairly normal lives to any other singer - hence there is a comparable control group -whilst Korean monks inhabited a different sector of society to regular workers.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 10:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Slavery really was bollocks
Now there's a part of the slave trade you never hear people complain about or even mention.
I wonder why not? If the US senate and Tony Blair had to apologise for what their countries did centuries ago, how come no one's demanding China's apology for their institutionalised bollock chopping?
I mean, seriously... Imagine being in that particular queue, in chains, knowing what was waiting for you at the end. No anaesthetic, no drummer boy, no pain killers or anti-biotics. Just a man with a 3" curved knife, a bowl and an onlooking clowder of very fat cats.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 10:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
I know this for real
I have a medical condition that means I can't produce testosterone. Believe me it's bloody miserable. Never mind no sex drive, you have no interest in women whatsoever. You have no energy, I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. You put on loads of weight and can't get rid of it, also you lose muscle. Your brain is a total fog, you make loads of weird mistakes and don't know why. All you want to do is die, suicide is never far from your mind.
I had this for 10 years trying to keep a full time job until I had it diagnosed, now they pump me full of the stuff every three months and believe me I'm a lot better for it.
Anonymous Cowered for obvious reasons.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 11:08 GMT 0laf
Nothing new
I was told this about 20yr ago at uni. If you get your nads off as well as living longer you might grow another couple of inches (it's testosterone that stops bone growth in teenage boys) and if you're a baldy your hair might grown back. The irony is that being taller with more hair you'll probably be more attractive to the female sex but being deficient in the baw bag department you'll be hard pushed to make use of it.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 14:39 GMT JetSetJim
Re: Longer life vs exercise
Wiki: "On average, obesity reduces life expectancy by six to seven years" - quoting article in the Lancet. But that's "fat" not "fit"
Then there's the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3317338/Fitness-not-fat-determines-life-expectancy.html But there's no numbers quoted beyond percentage chance of dying.
The other aspect is that fit people grow old a bit more gracefully, suffering less illness & disease:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/the-benefits-of-middle-age-fitness/
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 12:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Its the baggage, not the balls...
All the aggravation, the stress, a normal man has to endure for the usage of his balls - marriage, kids, etc. All unnatural. This stress is what kills men. The 'yes dear' syndrome. These guys had no such worries in their lives.
I'm married, and its fine, but hell, the peaceful years of no hassle, no kids, etc. are gone. The kids and the wife provide an up to all this, but in the end, it remains a roller coaster which will kill you faster than if you just didn't went the normal route.
If you census single guys living alone, healthily, with a social life, you know, not freaks, you'll see they live just as long as those eunuchs.
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Tuesday 25th September 2012 14:40 GMT No, I will not fix your computer
Doh.....
The eunuchs that this data was drawn from were typically in well-off environments, good health and food, while there is some sense in "the candle burning twice as bright burns half as long" the fact that they were a privileged class also significantly helped, and comparing them with the average (where most people didnot have the same privilege) skews the figures somewhat.
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