Can castration really prolong a man's life?

Analysis of records of court eunuchs in Korea suggest that castration prolongs life. Does it really, or are there other explanations?

What did the analysis find?
Documents detailing the lives of 81 eunuchs who lived in Korea between the mid-16th and mid-19th centuries showed that, on average, they lived 14 to 19 years longer than their non-castrated peers. "It provides some of the most compelling evidence yet that the male sex hormone, testosterone, reduces male lifespan," says Kyung Jin Min of Inha University in Incheon, South Korea. The conclusion supports the theory that testosterone-fuelled reproduction comes at a price, increasing the risk of heart disease and cancer, and reducing the strength of the immune system.

Steady on. Isn't it a bit much to claim that castration is the key to long life?
Yes. Min says that many earlier studies show that castration prolongs the life of animals, from 24 to 27 months in rats, for example. But previous studies were equivocal, showing life extension in castrated mental patients but not castrati musicians, for example.

How reliable were the sources?
How reliable are any ancient documents? Min and his colleagues relied on the Yang-Se-Gye-Bo, a record of eunuchs who served in courts of the ancient Korean Chosun Dynasty. They also used genaeological records of thousands of members of three Korean family lines ? the Mok, the Shin and the Seo. Min says three of the 81 eunuchs were centenarians compared with the current incidence of one per 3500 in Japan and one per 4400 in the US.

What do other experts in ageing say?
"When testosterone is lacking, the demand for amino acids to support cell proliferation and muscle-building is decreased, and it's thought that the body then shifts the use of these basic building blocks towards cellular defence and stress resistance," says Holly Brown-Borg, who studies ageing at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. She guesses that the eunuchs were smaller and less muscular, with lower levels of cancer and heart disease.

What would happen if I were to get castrated now?
It depends how old you are. Any increase in lifespan may only occur if men are castrated as boys. "It's possible that testosterone reduction therapy extends male lifespan, but Korean eunuchs were usually castrated before adolescence, so we don't know the effects of castration on lifespan in older men," says Min.

What other explanations could there be?
Eunuchs probably avoided life-shortening sexually transmitted infections, but there's no way of knowing. Min tried to control for the eunuchs' high social status by comparing their life expectancies with those of the kings and other males in royal households, which turned out to be just 47 and 45 respectively. He suggests looking at eunuchs in the Chinese and Ottoman empires.

Journal reference: Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.012

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