biological sex and immunology article

[ProbablyPossiblyPerhaps]

This is interesting - I'd assumed it was common knowledge that female and male bodies respond differently to prescription drugs and to many illnesses - certainly its uncontroversial to report in the media that more men die of COVID-19 than women for example... Yet apparently when its mainly women impacted this is often dismissed as hysteria or socialisation/ socio- cultural factors and the biology only now being objectively proved...

www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/15/1056908/biological-sex-immune-system?fbclid=IwAR3u8sI1PIJVx1ZmckaOv5yxN_2vqixkdSpUTNCvCGqLk8DRiqFc_lhbKGA sorry - here's the article link to an MIT publication.

The definitions are pretty sound, it's so refreshing:

"When referring to people in this article, “male” is used as a shorthand for people with XY chromosomes, a penis, and testicles, and who go through a testosterone-dominated puberty, and “female” is used as a shorthand for people with XX chromosomes and a vulva, and who go through an estrogen-dominated puberty."

(I'm aware some DSDs are more complex than this but these working definitions apply to a huge proportion of all humans.)

Interesting thanks

True, but a sad reflection of how low we have sunk. This wouldn't have been necessary a decade ago.

That's a powerful article with promising research. Though I'm a little uncomfortable with the ethical issuses that come with the prospect of studying the effects of cross sex hormones on the human immune system in trans people, not because I don't want it studied or for transphobic reasons but because no ethics board would ever allow a healthy human to take cross sex hormones just to study the effects on their immune system especially with all the known negative side effects of the hormones so no control group aswell as no standard does of hormones and what about puberty blockers and how they interact with the hormones and immune system. Yes I know that all of this needs studying but the article comes across as she is taking advantage of gender dysphoric people to run experiments that she couldn't possibly hope to get approval for normally and I don't think that she really intends to help trans people but just to further her research IMHO.
I do hope that I've miss interpreted the tone (have asd and often do) as it's about time that scientists started to properly treat and research women

Really interesting article; a lactation consultant I know said they think the ability to breast feed in mammals developed from the immune system, which would make a lit of sense in the context of the article.

'One hypothesis suggests that a stronger immune response in female mammals could help transfer more antibodies to their babies in utero and through their milk, thus protecting offspring from infections.'

I personally thought a lot of the differences in immune system between the sexes had been known for some time, especially regarding autoimmune diseases. But I didn't check the time frames she was talking about re when the research was done,

Increasingly feel the medical world would have learnt more about diseases and illnesses all round for both sexes if the focus had been more on women than men over the years.

Louise Newson is very keen on testosterone research and positive impact on women as they go through menopause. My asthma was diagnosed as I headed into peri menopause. I think I'd always had a tendency but as wasn't allergy reactive wasn't diagnosed till it got v bad along with other peri symptoms.

Very interesting article and much needed.

Hoarasuras my reading of this was that they were assessing the social factors, the attitude to risk, of trans gender patients. I agree with you about the ethical difficulties of persuading otherwise healthy participants to take cross sex hormones but that only excludes double blind randomised control trials. Yes, I know medics are keen on these, but no RCTs absolutely doesn't mean no research. We have many people taking cross sex hormones now (including too many vulnerable children). We can, and should do a whole host of physical and psychological tests on them, if they are willing to participate.