Sex and Gender Differences in Bacterial Infections

There is a growing awareness of the importance of sex and gender in medicine and research. Women typically have stronger immune responses to self and foreign antigens than men, resulting in sex-based differences in autoimmunity and infectious diseases. In both animals and humans, males are generally...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Infection and immunity Vol. 90; no. 10; p. e0028322
Main Authors: Dias, Sara P, Brouwer, Matthijs C, van de Beek, Diederik
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 20.10.2022
Subjects:
Animals
Bacterial Infections - epidemiology
Disease Susceptibility
Female
Humans
Immunity
Male
Sex Characteristics
Sex Factors
bacterial infections
gender differences
sex differences
ISSN:1098-5522, 1098-5522
Online Access:Get more information
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:There is a growing awareness of the importance of sex and gender in medicine and research. Women typically have stronger immune responses to self and foreign antigens than men, resulting in sex-based differences in autoimmunity and infectious diseases. In both animals and humans, males are generally more susceptible than females to bacterial infections. At the same time, gender differences in health-seeking behavior, quality of health care, and adherence to treatment recommendations have been reported. This review explores our current understanding of differences between males and females in bacterial diseases. We describe how genetic, immunological, hormonal, and anatomical factors interact to influence sex-based differences in pathophysiology, epidemiology, clinical presentation, disease severity, and prognosis, and how gender roles affect the behavior of patients and providers in the health care system.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ObjectType-Review-3
content type line 23
ISSN:1098-5522
1098-5522
DOI:10.1128/iai.00283-22