Health News

Metabolism of men and women different

Coordinated therapies: Different metabolisms in women and men

12/08/2011

The metabolism of men and women is very different. Scientists at the Helmholtz Center in Munich have found significant differences in their metabolic products. As a result of this knowledge, medical diagnostics will have to differentiate between male and female patients in the future. A study of over 3000 participants found differences in the majority of metabolic products.

Differences of men and women in metabolism
Men and women differ more clearly in the metabolic products than previously thought. Researchers at the Helmholtz Center in Munich have discovered significant differences in blood samples from female and male volunteers. Of 131 substances in the analyzed metabolic products, 101 showed substantial differences. Especially affected: lipids and amino acids. Any substance that enters the organism must be chemically degraded. In biochemistry and medicine, this process is called metabolism. Metabolites are degradation products that result from the breakdown of food or medicine. The degradation happens in humans superficially by enzymes and humors in the liver, intestine and urinary excretion in the kidney. Accordingly, metabolic products in man are faeces, urine and sweat.

Differentiated therapy for diseases
The new research results can be used immediately. For this, the experts linked genetic data and individual metabolic profiles. Thus, new findings on the individual causes and the course of disease could be determined. Another hope: The new approaches could in the future enable new therapies and drugs that are tailored to the gender of the patient. In addition, it should be possible to develop special markers on this basis in order to detect diseases earlier. Because in their molecular profile, men and women „be divided into two completely different categories“ write the two study director Thomas Illig and Kirstin Mittelstrass in the science magazine „PLoS Genetics“. This means that we also need gender-specific approaches to the treatment of disease“, The researchers add in the report.

Part of the Kora study
The representative study involved around 3000 subjects of both sexes. The study is part of the large-scale Kora study, which has been investigating the well-being of citizens from the Augsburg area for more than 20 years. The main questions of the long-term study are the effects of environment, behavior and genes on humans. The large study involves several thousand participants of different ages. Epidemiologists, bioinformaticians and biochemists participated in the sub-study. This makes the study the first study in the world that has shed light on genetic influences on gender-specific metabolism in this form. In the near future, the researchers want to analyze a large number of metabolic products in order to secure the previous data. (Sb)