Discussing autoimmune diseases depending on sex

[Davros]

Apart from being interesting, I’m pleased that this is an item purely about how autoimmune diseases affect people depending on sex

Now discussing research results using people who are taking opposite sex hormones, I.e. trans sexual

As I heard it, there are differences in the immune systems between men and women. The study in question included transwomen on oestrogen and transmen on oestrogen suppression. It turns out that if you add or suppress oestrogen, it makes no difference to whether your immune system has "male-characteristics" or "female-characteristics". That's determined by XX or XY.

They’re now talking about how important it is to record sex in health settings and research “and that hasn’t always happened”

Was annoyed to hear the phrase "assigned male/female at birth" being slipped in without challenge, in the same breath as "chromosomes"!

Thanks OP for flagging this, I will listen. I assume the Sullivan review is too recent to reference and this might have been recorded before it came out, but good that the issue got mentioned at all.

The resident gp, Margaret (? Can’t remember her second name) appears to be very clear about sex matters from her Twitter timeline

They would be more accurate in saying 'that used to always happen until about 2010 when trans and men's rights activists starting demanding the right to lie on medical records and now it's a mess'

A mess which could be easily sorted by an immediate ban on the NHS changing the sex marker other than in the very rare circumstance of someone being diagnosed with a DSD (most of whom are correctly sexed at birth anyway).

Add an optional 'gender' marker so anyone who wishes can state their gender - but this either must be optional or have a 'no gender' box, just like with religion.

It's roughly the last 10 minutes of this programme on Radio 4:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00298nh

And yes to Dr Margaret McCartney being one of the most sensible GPs who appears on the BBC WarriorN.

Margaret McCartney is awesome, such a great and clear communicator and was very early to stick her head over the parapet on sex not gender.

Really interesting thanks OP. Now that’s how studies should be done. Men, women, TM, TW all included and all different.

My local lactation consultant once told me they believe that breasts/mammary glands evolved from the immune system. (I was told that the areola pick up on infections in baby while breastfeeding and trigger an immune defence in the mum, and in her milk.) Hence a slightly different immune system in women. I believe the placenta is also somehow linked. Many autoimmune diseases improve during pregnancy too.

But also, women are more likely to suffer from auto-immune issues.

This is because, whilst we have 2 X chromosomes, we don't need both, in every cell, all the time. One is redundant most of the time.

So, usually, one copy gets packed away, and not active in the cell. It's completely random if the maternal or paternal X is packed up (in the Barr body)

Now, this isn't usually an issue, but you can look at the cells from a woman's body, and she will actually be a mosaic of cells with the maternal X being used, and cells with the paternal X being used.

Now, if, randomly, a woman has more cells in her bone marrow with (example) the maternal X, her immune system will recognise maternal X cells as "self", but with the right trigger, may then recognise paternal X cells as "other", and then attack them. Auto-immune issue.

Thank you for link. Very interesting.

Oh that makes sense. Mum has hypothyroidism and so do I.

I heart Mgt McCartney.