A new study highlights gender health differences

The results of an international study led by researchers from the Research Institute of the University of Health of the University of Queen Mary (PHURI) of the University of London (PHURI) of the University of London (PHURI) have given new light on the underlying biological mechanisms which cause differences in health risks, symptoms and results between men and women.

The study, carried out in collaboration with the Berlin Institute of Health at Charity, University of Berlin and the unit of epidemiology of the Medical Research Council (MRC) at the University of Cambridge, is published in Nature communications.

Using British Biobank data and the Fenland study, the team carried out an in -depth analysis of genetic links between ~ 6,000 proteins and hundreds of diseases in 56,000 men and women.

The team found that for two thirds of these proteins, their levels differ between men and women. A more in -depth examination revealed that only a very small fraction, around 100 proteins out of the 6,000 studied, had differences in genetic “switches” which control their levels, compared to men and women.

These results, which can have implications for the development of drugs, indicate that if there are differences between the sexes compared to the quantity they express certain proteins, which causes these differences is not only reduced to the differences in their genetics.

Instead, the authors highlight the importance of looking beyond genetics – and other medical factors such as hormones – when comparing risks and results between men and women.

Their results indicate that non -medical factors such as when people work and live, their education, their financial situation, access to resources, as well as their lifestyle also contribute to gender differences and should therefore be explored further and considered further when exploring sexual differences in health.

Mine Koprulu, the main author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary’s Phuri, said: “For the first time in history, we are able to study human biology at this level of detail – genes, proteins, proteins, etc.

“Our results highlight the need to better understand the factors that have an impact on health differences – at the genetic level and beyond – to create more personalized and equitable health care for everyone.”

Professor CLAUDIA LANGENBERG, Director of the PHURI at Queen MARY and IT professor at the Berlin Health Institute in Charity, in Germany, said: “The drug development pipelines are increasingly incorporating information on genetic differences in protein levels and function and that has led to a significant investment in human cohorts, such as UK BIOBANK.

“From this point of view, a better understanding of population differences in protein regulation, such as those between men and women, is essential to guide precision medicine approaches and identify where only one size may not correspond to everyone.

“Our results clearly show that very close to exceptions, the genetic variants regulating proteins identified so far behave so far very similar in men and women. This provides evidence of an important implicit hypothesis – that the ideas resulting from the study of these variants apply to both sexes.”

In this study, the data was classified as men or women on the basis of chromosomal information (XX or XY). The authors recognize that chromosomal information does not always align themselves with the identity of the genre of an individual.

However, for the purposes of this study (genetic scientific analyzes and in protein level), this categorization was necessary and the data on gender identity were not reliably recoded, which means that it could not be systematically used in all data.