Ills give women old- age health

Italy's oldest woman, Raffaella Monni, died a year ago in Sardinia at the age of 109.

She lived and worked all her life on a farm in the central Sardinian uplands. Until a few years before her death she was still sprightly enough to flit up a tree outside her small dry-stone home to pluck its hazelnuts.

Asked for the secret of her long and healthy life, she replied ''half a glass of grappa before bedtime''.

(ANSA) - Rome, December 9 - Seeing off the knocks of time and the illnesses of advancing years gives women a healthy old age, an Italian expert said Tuesday.

Unlike men, whose old-age health is linked to genetic factors, women gain health points as they grow older by battling with ailments, Bologna University immunology lecturer Claudio Franceschini told Italy's third annual Conference on Women's Health.

Women fall ill more than men but these ills are not killers, Franceschini said.

''Accumulating damage, paradoxically, and getting over these ailments makes women adapt: they get stronger and are more likely to enjoy a healthy old age,'' he said.

Men's health in old age, on the other hand, is ''much more closely linked to genetic factors,'' said Franceschini, who has led a Europe-wide study of men's DNA.

''Correlations between gene variations and male longevity are much more common than with women,'' he said on the basis of findings from the ongoing GEHA (GEnetics for Healthy Ageing) project.

Women's better health in old age is linked to their greater longevity compared to men, Franceschini added.

Women outlive men by 4-7 years worldwide.

Italy's oldest woman, Raffaella Monni, died a year ago in Sardinia at the age of 109.

She lived and worked all her life on a farm in the central Sardinian uplands. Until a few years before her death she was still sprightly enough to flit up a tree outside her small dry-stone home to pluck its hazelnuts.

Asked for the secret of her long and healthy life, she replied ''half a glass of grappa before bedtime''.