New evidence indicates that the Y chromosome participates in an array of essential, general-interest tasks in men, like stanching cancerous growth, keeping arteries clear and blocking the buildup of amyloid plaque in the brain.
As a sizable percentage of men age, their blood and other body cells begin to spontaneously jettison copies of the Y chromosome, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. That unfortunate act of chromosomal decluttering appears to put the men at a heightened risk of Alzheimer’s disease, leukemia and other disorders.
“I’m quite certain,” said Lars Forsberg, an associate professor of medical genetics at Uppsala University in Sweden, “that the loss of the Y chromosome with age explains a very large proportion of the increased mortality in men, compared to women.”
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Men with a high percentage of Y-free cells — 10 percent or more — are at a heightened risk of dying in the near future, compared with similarly aged men whose cells have hung onto their Y’s.
And men with Alzheimer’s disease are more likely to be L.O.Y. men than are their non-demented cohorts.
The researchers propose that a weakening of the immune system may explain the many perils of L.O.Y. When white blood cells that serve as immune sentries lose their Y chromosome, [researcher Jan] Dumanski said, their surveillance skills falter. They fail to clean up messes on arterial walls or to spot cancer cells in need of destruction.
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