Female sex hormone and protection from the effects of the flu

via flickr.com

"In mouse studies, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found that progesterone - a female sex hormone contained in most forms of hormone-based birth control - appears to stave off the worst effects of influenza infection and, in an unexpected finding, help damaged lung cells to heal more quickly.

The findings, published Sept. 15 in PLOS Pathogens, suggest that sex hormones have an effect far beyond the reproductive system and that progesterone may one day be a viable flu treatment for women.

The World Health Organization reports that more than 100 million young adult women around the world are on progesterone-based contraception. And women of reproductive age are twice as likely than men to suffer from complications related to the influenza virus.

"Despite the staggering number of women who take this kind of birth control, very few studies are out there that evaluate the impact of contraceptives on how the body responds to infections beyond sexually-transmitted diseases," says study leader Sabra L. Klein, PhD, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915144704.htm

Estrogen protects women against the flu, study finds

via micro.magent.fsu.edu

"The female sex hormone estrogen has anti-viral effects against the influenza A virus, commonly known as the flu, a new study in American Journal of Physiology -- Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology reports.

A virus infects and causes sickness by entering a cell and making copies of itself inside the host cell. When released from infected cells, the virus can spread through the body and between people. How much a virus has replicated determines its severity. Less replication of the virus means the infected person may experience less disease or is less likely to spread the disease to someone else, says Sabra Klein, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University and lead investigator of the study.

To examine how estrogen affected the flu virus's ability to replicate, the research team gathered nasal cells -- the cell type that the flu virus primarily infects -- from male and female donors. The researchers exposed the cell cultures to the virus, estrogen, the environmental estrogen bisphenol A and selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERM), which are compounds that act like estrogen that are used for hormone therapy..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160112093424.htm