Testosterone Regulates Stomach Inflammation in Mice
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have determined that stomach inflammation is regulated differently in male and female mice after finding that androgens, or male hormones, play an important role in preventing stomach inflammation. This finding suggests that doctors could consider treating male patients with gastritis differently than female patients with the same condition. The study was published in Gastroenterology.
Busada JT, Peterson KN, Khadka S, Xu, X, Oakley RH, Cook DN, Cidlowski JA. 2021.Glycocorticoids and androgens protect against gastric chemosis by inhibiting activation of group 2 innate lymphocytes. Gastroenterology: doi: 10.1053 / j.gastro.2021.04.075 [online May 7, 2021].
Commentary
The study stated that inflammation in the body has different characteristics depending on gender. In fact, it was stated that 8 out of 10 autoimmune diseases in humans are in women, so the study will elucidate the effects of glycocorticoids and androgens.
The focus was on the "gastric gland" because of chronic inflammatory diseases and gastric cancer, explaining that glycocorticoids and androgens have been shown to act like a brake on the immune system. In addition, because women have only one protective layer, the experiment explained that when glycocorticoids are removed, gastric inflammation and a precancerous state of the stomach called spasmodic polypeptide expression metastasis (SPEM) occur. In men, this is not a problem because androgens compensate for the absence of the glycocorticoid brake.
Thus, in healthy gastric glands, the presence of corticoids and androgens may be a potential therapeutic target because they inhibit a special type of immune cell called type 2 innate lymphocyte (ILC2).
