为什么女性更长寿？Cell：全新“生殖韧性假说”将女性生育力与寿命联系起来

TL;DR - A Cell review from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging proposes the "Reproductive Resilience Hypothesis" (RRH), arguing that female longevity arises because natural selection couples reproduction with enhanced somatic maintenance rather than trading them off — and that aging research should therefore prioritize female subjects.

• RRH challenges classic theories (antagonistic pleiotropy, disposable soma), which predict reproduction–maintenance trade-offs but can't explain why females consistently outlive males despite higher reproductive investment, or why highly fertile queens (honeybee, naked mole-rat) live far longer than non-reproductive workers.
• The proposed mechanism: when reproductive success depends on prolonged survival and offspring/grand-offspring care, selection binds reproduction to somatic maintenance (antioxidant defense, mitochondrial function, telomere length, immune regulation). Species where males also provide care (e.g. albatross) show comparable male lifespans — lifespan tracks whether survival aids reproduction, not sex per se.
• Loss of reproductive resilience is framed as a sex-specific hallmark of aging: menopause dissolves the reproduction–longevity coupling, explaining accelerated systemic aging and the "female health paradox" (longer life, more morbidity — osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's).
• Practical implications cited: reproductive milestones (puberty age, pregnancy, lactation, menopause) should be explicit variables in aging studies; the review notes lactation >12 months associates with ~30% lower diabetes and ~14% lower breast cancer risk, and later natural menopause with lower all-cause mortality. It criticizes the male-mouse default in lab studies and points to ovarian transplantation/tissue engineering as attempts to restore the coupling.