Androgens and inflammation

Male Hormones Help Stop Stomach inflammation in Mice

Tatiana Matveeva, "Scientific Russia"

Scientists from the National Institute of Environmental and Hygiene Sciences (NIEHS, USA) have determined that stomach inflammation is regulated differently in male and female mice. It turned out that androgens – male sex hormones – can help stop inflammation in the stomach. This discovery suggests that doctors may consider treating male patients with stomach inflammation differently than female patients with the same disease, the NIEHS press service reports. The study was published in the journal Gastroenterology (Busada et al., Glucocorticoids and androgens protect from gastric metaplasia by suppressing group 2 innate lymphoid cell activation).

This discovery was made by scientists after removal of the adrenal glands in mice of both sexes. The adrenal glands produce glucocorticoids – hormones that perform several functions, including suppressing inflammation. Without glucocorticoids, female mice soon developed stomach inflammation, while males did not. However, after the androgens were removed from the males, their stomachs also became inflamed, as did the females.

"Along with glucocorticoids, androgens offer a new way to control human immune function," said one of the authors of the study, John Sidlowski, Ph.D., deputy head of the NIEHS Signal transmission laboratory and head of the molecular endocrinology group.

Although this study provides insight into how inflammation is regulated in males, scientists are currently conducting additional research to understand how this process goes in females. Next, they plan to find out how glucocorticoids and androgens affect stomach cancer, which is caused by chronic inflammation. According to scientists, women have only one level of protection, so if you remove glucocorticoids, they will develop inflammation of the stomach and a precancerous condition of the stomach called metaplasia.

The researchers have also suggested a possible mechanism or biological process behind this phenomenon. In healthy stomach glands, the presence of glucocorticoids and androgens suppresses special immune cells called type 2 congenital lymphoid cells (ILC 2). But there are no hormones in the diseased glands of the stomach. As a result, ILC2 can act as a fire alarm, directing other immune cells, called macrophages, to the focus of inflammation and damage to the gastric glands, which eventually leads to cancer.

"ILC2 are the only immune cells that contain androgen receptors and can be a potential therapeutic target," Sidlowski emphasized. 

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