A study performed by scientists from York University provides insight regarding significant differences between female and male mice in terms of diseases related to obesity. SciTechDaily reports how the study shows striking differences in the cells that make blood vessels within fatty tissues of males compared to their female counterparts.
Men Have Higher Chances of Developing Conditions Related to Obesity
Professor Tara Haas from the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at the Faculty of Health at York University noted that men, compared to women, have higher chances of developing conditions related to obesity. This may include insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.
Haas explains that people have utilized rodent models to look into obesity and related conditions. However, specialists have always used male subjects because females are more resistant to the development of the same conditions. Haas notes that the team was interested in looking into the differences between males and females because there could be something interesting within females that protected them.
According to Science Daily, the team of Haas noted in a previous study that when mice get obese, the female ones make more blood vessels to grant oxygen and nutrients to the expanding fat. Males, on the other hand, have lesser growth.
In their study published in iScience, the team focused on endothelial cell differences. These cells serve as building blocks for the blood vessels within fat tissue.
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Males Have Heightened Levels of Processes Linked to Inflammation
The researchers utilized software to go through thousands of genes and focus on the ones linked to the growth of blood vessels. They found out that the processes linked to new blood vessel proliferation were high among female mice. Males, on the other hand, had higher levels of processes linked to inflammation.
Haas notes how the prevalence levels of inflammation-related processes were striking among males. Different studies have revealed that when endothelial cells have such inflammation responses, they end up dysfunctional and do not respond properly to stimuli.
Co-author Pislaru emphasizes the excitement of observing consistent resilience within female endothelial cells even if they are stressed by a long-term diet that is high in fat. Pislaru also expresses that their study findings can help specialists know more about why obesity manifests differently across sexes.
The scientists also examined endothelial cell behavior when it was extracted from the body and placed in Petri dishes. Haas notes that even when they were taken from the body, the endothelial cells of both males and females still had strikingly different behaviors.
Endothelial cells of females had faster replication, while their male counterparts had higher sensitivity to stimuli that were inflammatory. As they looked into published data sets, the scientists also discovered that aged mouse endothelial cells also had a more potent inflammatory profile compared to female ones.
Haas stresses how the issue could be broader than obesity itself, as it may also encompass healthy aging. One of the study's implications is that there may be times when treatment that is ideal for men may not be the same for women, and vice-versa.
Though humans and mice have varying genes that could be turned down or up, Haas thinks that their findings may apply to humans as well. Haas is also interested in looking into the same cells in humans.
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