Autoimmune diseases and testosterone
Male immunity is crushed by the hormone
Pyotr Smirnov, "Newspaper.Ru»Men are less susceptible to severe autoimmune diseases due to testosterone than women.
The hormone blocks the synthesis of molecules that attract more and more new cells to the site of inflammation, and thereby inhibits the immune response. An intermediate agent of this deterrence can become a good target for the development of drugs against asthma and chronic inflammation.
Control over every cell of the body is beyond the power of even our perfect nervous system, connected only to the key "control" elements in organs and tissues. It is even more difficult for neurons to cope with the management of metabolism, but then the hormone system comes to the rescue. And even if it takes not a fraction of a second to activate it, but several minutes, but the effect with the blood flow can spread to the whole body.
It is even somewhat strange that until now it has not been possible to explain such a difference in one of the most universal reactions of our body, which at first reacts equally to a scalpel incision in absolutely sterile conditions or a brick that fell on the little finger, or to thousands of bacterial spores that got into the wound along with the earth. The "corpses" of the dead brothers become an excellent target for cells migrating to the hearth, and after a few minutes the process becomes avalanche-like.
The "avalanche" occurs due to leukotrienes synthesized in huge quantities. These molecules, which produce immune cells called leukocytes, are an excellent bait for other immunocompetent cells.
How this system gets out of control is well known to millions of people suffering from allergies and atopic asthma.
Moreover, the "unlucky" for the most part is the fair sex, the proof of this is the disappointing statistics on rheumatoid arthritis. And although it's not so simple with asthma – it even affects boys more often – after puberty, the ratio changes again not in favor of women. It is at this time that the active production of androgens begins, which are "processed" into estrogens in the female body.
It is not surprising that the level of the main androgen – testosterone, or rather its active form 5-dihydrotestosterone – has become the main target of researchers. Wertz and co-authors of the publication in The Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences found that dihydrotestosterone blocks the work of the enzyme synthesizing the above-mentioned leukotrienes.
At the same time, female cells react to testosterone in the same way as male cells – it was worth adding testosterone to the white blood cells in the "male concentration", as the synthesis of leukotrienes plummeted. The mediator is "extracellular signal-regulated kinases" (ERK, extracellular signal-regulated kinases), already found in other tissues, for example, the liver and pancreas.
However, this result did not come as a special surprise to scientists, because therapy with other hormones – corticosteroids – has long been used to suppress particularly strong inflammatory and autoimmune reactions.
Sex hormones are unlikely to be used in the treatment of asthma, but the future of ERK molecules looks much more attractive from a practical point of view.
In addition, the discovered phenomenon can be used "in the other direction" – a small excess of leukotrienes in the female body will help them cope better with severe lung and other infections. It is only unclear why nature needs such "gender inequality".
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru10.12.2008