Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Health & Medicine

Testosterone protects against inflammation

A new use found for testosterone.

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
June 27, 2019
in Health & Medicine, News
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Testosterone might protect against inflammation, a study on mice suggests. Researchers found that administering a simple anti-inflammatory drug like ibuprofen to pregnant mice can increase survival rates in embryos.

During pregnancy, the body changes in a number of ways to protect the embryo, and as the pregnancy progresses, the fetus. For instance, inflammation in the mother’s body is oftentimes suppressed, so that the side effects don’t do any damage. However, not much is known about the consequences of maternal and fetal inflammation during pregnancy.

ADVERTISEMENT

Inflammation is the natural process through which the body responds to injury and infection. Inflammation gets a lot of bad rep, but it’s actually an essential process associated with healing. Without inflammation as a physiological response, wounds would fester, and infections could become deadly. But inflammation can also be triggered by a perceived internal threat, even when there isn’t a disease to fight or an injury to heal and can cause problems in and of itself.

DNA damage is a well-known cause of inflammation. John Schimenti and colleagues from Cornell University wanted to investigate how DNA mutations (that caused defective DNA replication and repair during embryo development) affect the survival rates of mice embryos. They found that on average, male embryos were much more likely to survive than female embryos. The cause for this, researchers suspect, is testosterone, which can act as a common anti-inflammatory.

To confirm this theory, researchers administered pregnant mice ibuprofen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). After this treatment, survival rates for both males and females were equal, confirming the theory.

ADVERTISEMENT
Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone. It’s also often seen as the underlying cause for male aggression, but the hormone actually interacts with the male body in numerous complex ways. This isn’t the first time testosterone has been highlighted as a potential way to treat inflammation — previous studies from 2013 all the way to 2019 have come up with consistent findings.

Journal Reference: The study “Female-biased embryonic death from inflammation induced by genomic instability” has been published in Nature. 10.1038/s41586-019-0936-6

Tags: testosterone
ShareTweetShare
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.