On the number of sons born and shorter lifespan in historical Sami mothers

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Main Authors: Helle, Samuli, Lummaa, Virpi, Jokela, Jukka
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Royal Society 2010
• Subjects: sami
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.2114

A recent paper by Cesarini et al. (2009) published in Proceedings B aimed at replicating our previous finding showing that in historical Sami mothers from Northern Scandinavia (mainly from Finland), each son born was associated with a reduction of 0.65 years of a mother's post-menopausal lifespan (Helle et al. 2002). This finding supports the hypothesis that energetic resources invested in reproduction by the mothers may compromise those resources available for longevity (Kirkwood & Rose 1991). Using similar but a larger dataset of Sami mothers from Sweden, a neighbouring country of Finland, Cesarini et al. (2009) found no evidence for the association between sons born and the mothers' post-menopausal lifespan. The authors made two main conclusions: (i) our results were likely to be false-positive because of smaller sample size and (ii) that current evidence for the association between offspring sex and maternal longevity is rare and restricted to these Finnish Sami only. We disagree with both conclusions.