Another area where gender equality is not in order. Women are in fact less sensitive to the virus of flu, thanks to a protective effect generated by their hormones, estrogen. In any case, this is what researchers from the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore (United States) suggest, in a study published in the scientific journal American Journal of Physiology.
Lowered viral load
To perform this study, the researchers took cells from the lining of the nose of 10 men and 42 women aged 18 to 45, and cultured them in vitro. These cells are in fact the first to be infected by the influenza virus in an organism. They then exposed them to three types of chemical compounds: estrogen, bisphenol A (an endocrine disruptor) and a selective estrogen receptor modulator. These last two compounds mimic the action of estrogen at the cellular level. Then the researchers inoculated the influenza virus into these cultures. Result: in the presence of these three chemical compounds, the viral load of influenza is reduced for cells from a woman’s nose but is unchanged for those from a man’s nose. However, a lower viral load will imply symptomsless pronounced. “These data provide new insight into the cellular and molecular mechanism of the impact of natural and synthetic estrogens on influenza and respiratory infections.“congratulate the authors of this study. Women who benefit from an increased estrogen intake by a estrogen-progestogen contraception or by hormonal supplementation with menopausewould therefore be less vulnerable to the flu virus. But these results will need to be verified on more people before they can be generalized.
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