Posted on 10/10/2011 12:32:06 AM PDT by neverdem
As anyone familiar with the phrase 'man-flu' will know women consider themselves to be the more robust side of the species when it comes to health and illness. Now new research, published in BioEssays, seems to support the idea. The research focuses on the role of MicroRNAs encoded on the X chromosome to explain why women have stronger immune systems to men and are less likely to develop cancer.
The research, led by Dr Claude Libert from Ghent University in Belgium, focused on MicroRNA, tiny strains of ribonucleic acid which alongside DNA and proteins, make up the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.
"Statistics show that in humans, as with other mammals, females live longer than males and are more able to fight off shock episodes from sepsis, infection or trauma," said Libert. "We believe this is due to the X chromosome which in humans contains 10% of all microRNAs detected so far in the genome. The roles of many remain unknown, but several X chromosome-located strands of microRNA have important functions in immunity and cancer."
Dr Libert's team proposes that the biological mechanisms of the X chromosome have a strong impact on an individual's genes, known as genetic imprinting, which gives an immunological advantage to females. To develop their hypothesis the team produced a detailed map of all described microRNAs which have a role in immune functions and cancer in both human and mouse X chromosomes.
"We believe this immunological advantage is due to the silencing of X-linked genes by these microRNAs," said Libert. "Gene silencing and inactivation skewing are known mechanisms which affect X-linked genes and may influence X-linked microRNAs in the same way."
This genetic silencing leaves males at an immunological disadvantage as a male has only one X-chromosome...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Check http://pubget.com/
Female disease vector
Bitch set him up!
I doubt any microscopic data is more significant than day to day observations at school or work. The microscopic data loses by at least a factor of 2.
As a male, I demand special consideration and reparations for the lot life has dealt me. I think I feel a headache coming on!! Gotta call in sick.
It’s clear they’ve never been to our house. The women folk around here go down for a week when they get sick.
Me? Two days is max for something really bad.
Most anyone can hunt and gather, but someone has to feed the babies—which makes women less expendable in the survival of humans as a species. Marvelous design...
As an immunologist I could say that this is a bit of an oversimplications on the overall disease risk side. While it is accurate that women are at a lower overall risk for cancer, they are at a much higher overall rate for autoimmune (and asome form of inflammatory) diseases. In fact the disparity in rate of autoimmunity is so great that this category og immune-based diseases in now sometimes termed “a female disease” (that is not to say men cannot get it). So women are actually immunlogically different from men. But this different is only “better” if you are focusing on one particular category of immune functional disease.
What do you think outside of your statistics?
Thanks for posting. There is so much hype in science that it's starting to make commercial marketing pale in comparison. The current ‘flavor of the month’ is micro RNA, and if you buy into all that has been published about it recently you would think that it is more important than DNA, and that it is the master regulator of all cellular processes.
Whatever happened to thoughtful science? Why isn't it good enough to just add something substantive to the common knowledge without trying to sell one’s work as equivalent to the Holy Grail?
I read a very good article years ago on why men die earlier than men (even after you factor in dangerous lifestyles). The thrust of the article was that women are trained to go to the doctor's office when they are feeling bad, but men are taught to ignore pains. Consequently, potentially fatal diseases are caught earlier in women than men.
Also remember that each person is different. My wife gets sick at least once a month and I may get the sniffles once a year. She gets the flu shot every year and I haven't gotten one in goodness knows how long.
Umm. Uh. *nevermind*
Yes, the Designer had this all figured out before a thing that is existed. Talk about planning ahead...
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