Scientists have often pondered why certain inflammatory diseases and allergies are more common in women as compared to men. Finally, they seem to have got an answer to this question. Pharmacists at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) have shown in a recent study that it is the male sex hormone, testosterone which protects the men against these illnesses.
According to the research which is published in the current edition of the scientific journal ‘FASEB Journal’, sexual hormones play a key role in preventing inflammatory diseases in men. That is why, while women suffer from diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis or asthma, men seem to remain largely unaffected by them. According to Dr. Carlo Pergola from the Institute of Pharmacy of University Jena, cells from men and women react in a different manner to inflammatory stimuli. It has been found that certain immune cells of women produce nearly twice as many pro-inflammatory substances than those of men. The scientists from Jena, along with their colleagues from Tübingen (Germany), Stockholm (Sweden) and Naples (Italy), tried to find out the molecular basis of these differences.
They isolated immune cells of male and female donors and analyzed the activity of the enzymes responsible for the production of pro-inflammatory substances. They found that in male cells, the enzyme phospholipase D is less active than in the female ones. But the most important observation was that in the presence of testosterone, the activity of this enzyme is reduced even in female cells. Based on this result, the Jena researchers concluded that testosterone plays an important role in the modulation of immune response. They also found that testosterone protects the men from arteriosclerosis as well, through a process akin to the one in this experiment.
According to Professor Werz from the Jena University, the results show that testing for new therapies against inflammation and allergies in male volunteers can give a skewed result. Therefore, products tested on men will not necessarily show the same results in women.
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