Key Points
New Delhi:Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Imperial College London, UK, have discovered how sex hormones influence the differences in how men and women fight off diseases...
The findings, published Wednesday inNature, were made possible by studying the immune responses of transgender men who are born female but identify as male and started receiving testosterone treatment after the study kicked off...
Several previous scientific studies have indicated variations in the disease-fighting abilities of men and women..
If we can figure out exactly what effect sex hormones are having on the functioning of our immune system, this will help us to provide more individualised therapies, specifically tailored to the immune systems of men and women, and also improve our understanding of how long-term hormone therapies (of which gender-affirming hormone therapy is just one example) and even natural fluctuations in hormone levels throughout life (caused by puberty, pregnancy, etc.) may impact immune function, shared Petter Brodin, one of the researchers involved in the study, in an email response to ThePrint when asked about the broad implications of the research...
The study included transgender men who had not previously been a part of any hormonal treatment, did not have a history of autoimmune diseases or immunodeficiencies and remained free from inflammation or infections during the study...
