The flu vaccine is less effective for men than women, and researchers at Stanford University believe the reason
behind that is hormonal. Testosterone may cause the human immune system to produce fewer antibodies, hence a lowered immune response. The lead investigator in the Stanford Study, David Furman, told HealthDay News that "Men, typically, do worse than women in immune response to infection and vaccination." Perhaps because of that, men are considered to be more susceptible to bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic infections than women. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at 90 adults who had received a seasonal flu shot. The men with the highest levels of testosterone, they found, had the most limited response to the flu vaccine. While previous research had shown that women had greater immune responses to vaccination than men, the Stanford study found that men with low levels of testosterone had an antibody response more similar to that of women. |
