A new study has uncovered new insights into the biological mechanisms causing health differences between males and females, emphasizing the crucial role of non-genetic factors.
A recent international study led by researchers from Queen Mary University of London has uncovered crucial insights into the biological and environmental factors contributing to health differences between males and females. The findings could pave the way for more personalized health care approaches in the future.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, involved collaboration with the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.
Utilizing data from the UK Biobank and the Fenland study, the researchers analyzed genetic links between approximately 6,000 proteins and hundreds of diseases in 56,000 men and women.
Interestingly, the researchers discovered that protein levels differed between males and females for two-thirds of the proteins analyzed. However, only about 100 of the 6,000 proteins exhibited differences in the genetic “switches” controlling their levels between the sexes.
“For the first time in history, we are able to study human biology at this level of detail — across genes, proteins and more. This is the largest study to date exploring the similarities and differences in how our genetic code regulates blood protein levels between sexes,” lead author Mine Koprulu, a postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary’s Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI), said in a news release.
These findings suggest that factors beyond genetics — including lifestyle, environment, education and socioeconomic status — also play significant roles in shaping health outcomes.
The results highlight the necessity of considering a broad spectrum of factors when examining health disparities between sexes.
Claudia Langenberg, a director of the PHURI at Queen Mary and professor of computational medicine at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité, echoed this sentiment, underscoring the importance of this research for precision medicine.
“Drug development pipelines increasingly incorporate information on genetic differences in protein levels and function, and this has led to large investment in human cohorts, such as UK Biobank,” she added.
Implications of this study are far-reaching, providing a potential roadmap for pharmaceutical companies and health care providers to develop more tailored treatments. By recognizing that genetic variations affecting protein regulation are generally similar across sexes, the use of such data can be more confidently applied to both male and female populations.
However, the authors acknowledge that sex-based chromosomal categorization (XX or XY) used in their research does not always align with individuals’ gender identity. This was necessary for the genetic and protein-level analyses conducted, although future studies may benefit from incorporating more comprehensive data on gender identity.
Source: Queen Mary University of London