This is the first time I have seen this
discussed by almost anyone specifically. This is coming from the
Medical University of Vienna.
They declare that the international
guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus purport to
observe factors such as age, social environment, the duration of the
illness, or associated health complaints. The factor gender is not included. They state that this is becoming an ever-growing issue
because men and women bear different risks and fall victim to and
suffer from a different type of diabetes. This indicates that the
treatment should be increasingly more gender-specific and thus
personalized.
This is the most important realization
of a review regarding the status of gender-specific differences
authored to this holistic extent for the first time worldwide, to
which the MedUni Vienna researchers Alexandra Kautzky-Willer and
Jürgen Harreiter (both of the University or Internal Medicine II,
Gender Medicine Unit) participated.
The review was published in Endocrine
Reviews, the journal in endocrinology with the highest impact factor
21,059 by far. In addition, the article from the MedUni Vienna
scientists was featured prominently on the cover of the journal.
The following is key. Other risk
factors, genetic disposition, and biomarkers in women and men, the
facts clearly speak for a gender-specific consideration and treatment
of diabetes mellitus, which affects approximately 600,000 Austrians.
From a biological aspect, men are principally at a higher risk of
contracting diabetes mellitus; women are "protected" for a
while due to the increased disbursement of the estrogen hormone until
menopause causes a hormonal change and reduces this protection.
In most cases, the risk for men is
increased because they have a greater amount of stomach fat and more
liver fat and a lower sensitivity to insulin, even if they are not
overweight. However, the lack of testosterone in men is a risk
factor, whereby women with a greater amount of male sexual hormones
are principally at a higher risk.
"In contrast, it was shown that
the thigh fat, which is more frequent in women due to genetics and
estrogen, can even have a protective effect. On the other hand, the
stomach circumference in women has a better diabetes predictive power
than in men," states Kautzky-Willer, diabetes expert and
Austria's first professor for gender medicine. "In women,
also psychosocial stress, stress on the job as well as lack of
decision-making competency at high performance pressure or lack of
sleep more frequently lead to diabetes than in men. This is often
also intensified due to weight gain." On the other hand,
men are more at risk of developing diabetes at a later point in life,
if their mothers suffered malnutrition during pregnancy.
There are also gender-specific
differences in the biomarkers, which can aid in the early detection
of the diabetes risk: so are the protein Fetuin-A formed by the liver
as well as Copeptin (a prohormone formed in the hypothalamus), and
proneurotensin (a neurotransmitter) promising biomarkers in women,
yet not in men. Here, the hormone Leptin, which sends chemical
messages to cease eating and to harvest energy from the reservoirs,
such as fat depots, is a strong biomarker.
Also environmental impacts as risk
factors for diabetes. Also endocrine disruptors, meaning
hormone-active substances, become increasingly important,"
emphasizes Jürgen Harreiter. Studies showed that synthetically
manufactured substances such as Bisphenol A or Phatalate (softening
agent), which are contained in many plastic items, are considered
risk factors for diabetes - depending on age, also here there are
different effects in men and women.
There are also regional differences:
More and more women in Oceania, South and Central Asia, as well as
the Middle East are contracting diabetes, whereas the illness
concerns more and more men in more affluent areas of the Pacific-Asia
region as well as in central Europe.
In the future, the mentioned
gender-specific factors in case of diabetes are to be incorporated in
the praxis (the practice) more than ever. Here, MedUni Vienna is
playing a leading role throughout Europe, particularly with the
internal network of researches at the University for internal
medicine III with gynecology, the Excellence Centre for Hochfeld-MR,
nephrology, the centre for Public Health but also with the Institute
for the science of complex systems as well as strong international
cooperation. ÖDG (Austrian Diabetes Society) with Kautzky-Willer as
Deputy Chairperson and many MedUni Vienna scientists in leading
positions, is worldwide the only one with gender-specific guidelines
in their program.
No comments:
Post a Comment