Soul singer James Brown may have reckoned that This is a Man's World, but women can take comfort from the fact that they are likely to be around much longer and spend their life a whole lot healthier.

According to research published yesterday that was carried out in America and 20 other countries, men are more likely to die prematurely than women, whether it be in the dangerous excesses of youth or from ill health in later life.

Whether it is James Dean dead at the wheel of his beloved Porsche at 24, Mozart buried in an unmarked grave at 34, or Jimi Hendrix, dead of a drugs overdose at 27, many have lived fast and died young.

In the United States in 1998, men up to the age of 50 were twice as likely to die than women - and the risk remains greater even for men who make it to their 80s and beyond.

The difference in death rates between the sexes is even more extreme between the ages of 20 and 24, when three times more men die.

Researcher Randolph Nesse, from the University of Michigan in Ann Abor, in the US, told New Scientist magazine in a report on the findings: "Being male is now the single largest demographic factor for early death."

The US data was backed by death rates in countries as varied as Ireland, Australia, Russia, Singapore and El Salvadore.

Everywhere they looked, the researchers found it was more perilous to be a man.

In Colombia - admittedly a country notorious for violence and homicide - men in their early 20s are five times more likely to die as women of the same age.

Yet the pattern is not merely the result of sudden violent death.

It holds for every major cause of death, from car crashes to heart attacks and murder.

According to the British Men's Health Forum, the welfare of men has not improved since the 1970s, and for some people, has even got worse.

Death rates for young men are the same as 1971, the forum says, while suicide rates have more than doubled.

The incidence of prostate cancer has increased by more than 135pc, the number of men with testicular cancer has doubled, and the proportion of men who are obese has more than tripled since 1980.

Add in heart disease, alcohol abuse and stress - which all affect men more than women - and it begins to become clear why the average life expectancy for British men is 74.6 years, compared to 79.6 for women.

Men are more likely to die from cancer, heart disease, HIV infection, accidents and suicide, and are more likely to drink more, smoke, be overweight or use illegal drugs.

Just for good measure, men are less likely to consult a GP or a dentist.

The situation for men in the North-East is just as bad, according to Steven Singleton, medical director of the Northumberland and Tyne and Wear Health Authority.

He said: "There's a complex mixture of different things that cause this, but it is true that being a man means you are more likely to die younger.

"In the younger age group, men are more vulnerable to accidents because they tend to be more risking.

"In adults it can be more down to industrial accidents, because men tend to be more involved in things like the building trade, and as you get into middle age, women are less vulnerable to heart disease and strokes because, we think, of oestrogen.

"For the same person doing the same job, exercising and eating the same, the chances are that the man will die before the woman.

"There's nothing much you can do about that, because you can't change your sex, but there are a few factors people need to recognise.

"Men need to think about heart disease earlier than women, and in the North-East, we do need a cultural shift for men to starting thinking about their health earlier on in life.

"One of the things about cancer, for example, is that women tend to seek help before men. There's a macho culture about not seeing the doctor, and that needs to change."

Even things that have helped men's health in the North-East have not been entirely beneficial, Dr Singleton said.

While fewer men are dying early because of their involvement in heavy industry, the growth of office jobs has made local men more sedentary and in need of exercise outside work.

The health gender gap has been on the rise since the 1940s, at least in the US, France, Japan and Sweden, where historical figures were available.

The American researchers suggest that improvements in public health and medicine may have benefited women more than men - such as the fewer numbers of women dying in childbirth - while technological advances have made the world more dangerous for men, supplying them with more powerful guns and faster cars.

Sexual selection could also partly explain the differences, suggest researchers Nesse and Kruger.

Competition for potential mates may be what drives men to take greater risks, with the result that men have evolved greater reproductive success at the expense of longevity. If there is any comfort for men to have in their nasty, short, miserable lives, it is that they are not alone. The same may be true for male chimpanzees and even fruit flies, say the scientists.