Three Big Reasons Why Women Get Autoimmune Diseases More Than Men
More than 75% of all autoimmune patients are women.1
Women have 90% of all thyroid diseases, and they make up 90% of all lupus sufferers.2
Why? These figures are too high to just be chance. Most professionals agree that there is something going on that causes women to be so dis-proportionally afflicted with autoimmune diseases.
So what is it? Research has been coming out the past several years that is bringing attention to three major reasons why women suffer with autoimmune diseases more than men, and here they are.
Reason #1: Too Much Estrogen
Estrogen is a naturally occurring hormone in women. But like most everything in nature, having too much or too little can have devastating effects.
Excess or insufficient estrogen is connected with the development of many serious diseases.
Diseases associated with excess estrogen include:
- Breast cancer
- Endometrial cancer
- Ovarian cancer
- Gallbladder dysfunction and gallstones
- Lupus
- Multiple sclerosis
Diseases associated with insufficient estrogen include:
- Heart disease
- Osteoporosis3
Multiple animal studies have shown that estrogen promotes certain autoimmune diseases in animals.4 On top of this, several studies looking at how hormones affect lupus have clearly found that estrogens actually advance autoimmunity.
Both men and women have estrogen. However, it’s well known that women have much more estrogen than men. Consequently, these greater amounts of estrogen cause women to be more susceptible to diseases associated with high estrogen. As you look at the above list, it’s obvious that several of the estrogen associated diseases are related to female body parts (breast, ovarian, and endometrial).
The negative impact of excess estrogen is especially true when it comes to immune dysfunction diseases such as autoimmune diseases. There is now a wealth of data proving that through complex molecular mechanisms, estrogen has a powerful stimulating effect on various parts of the immune system. Estrogen has a lot more control on immune function or dysfunction than researchers had previously realized.
While estrogens promote autoimmunity, on the flip side androgens, which men are higher in than women, seem to suppress autoimmune activity. This is why your husband who eats the same things as you do and has a similar stress level doesn’t get an autoimmune disease and you do.
Where Does the Extra Estrogen Come From?
Women’s natural higher range of estrogen levels probably isn’t the culprit in enhancing autoimmune activity. If this were true then women would have been having autoimmune diseases for the last 4,500 years of recorded history, but they haven’t. Autoimmune diseases are a new plague, only surfacing within the last century.
Where the problem lies is with the additional environmental estrogen’s that compound on top of women’s already naturally high levels. This additional estrogen appears to be what’s tipping the scale. So where are women getting this extra estrogen? Many places, here’s a list.
- Dairy
- Meat
- Excess body fat
- Birth Control pills
- Cigarette smoking
- Alcohol consumption
- Some medications
To clarify cigarettes don’t contain estrogen but cigarette smoking has been shown to have a powerful negative effect on both male and female sex hormones amplifying many of the detrimental effects of excess hormones.5 And in case your wondering yes, alcohol has been found to be a source of additional estrogen.6
Early Puberty
One telltale sign that women are being bombarded with additional environmental estrogen is the fact that girls are having their periods at a younger age than ever recorded in history.
Dr. Shannon Dunn, a scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute and Toronto General Research Institute stated
“Young girls who get their period earlier, who go through puberty earlier, also seem to have double the risk of getting MS,”
Reason #2: More Active Immune Systems
Obviously, men and women are very different. We’re different physically, emotionally, and biologically. However research has found that even our immune systems operate a little differently. Studies have revealed that male and female immune systems “demonstrates remarkable sex differences.”7
Overall, it’s been found that females tend to have more vigorous immune systems than males. Because of this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that females are more susceptible to autoimmune diseases.
There are benefits to having a stronger immune system. Women have lower incidences of cancer, and conversely, men have a two to five-fold greater risk of developing cancer.
Dr Claude Libert from Ghent University in Belgium stated,
“Statistics show that in humans, as with other mammals, females live longer than males and are more able to fight off shock episodes from sepsis, infection or trauma,”8
Dr. Libert believes this is due to genetic material called microRNAs that females have on their X chromosomes that give their immune systems an advantage over males.
The unfortunate effect of this genetic blessing is that if women are exposed to the many negative environmental factors known to induce autoimmunity like estrogen, they will be more prone to develop an autoimmune disease than men.
Reason #3: Women Expose Themselves to More Toxins
The previously mentioned scientist, Dr. Shannon Dunn, stated that over the past 50 years, the percent of MS patients that are women has increased from 65 to about 75.
So I ask, what has changed in the last 50 years that has caused women to take up more and more of the autoimmune space? Is the physiology of women today drastically different than the physiology of women 50 years ago? No, but their environment is.
One of the key factors inducing autoimmunity in society is toxins. And women expose themselves to more toxins than men. Watch the video below and you’ll see what I mean.
It’s estimated by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that the average women applies 168 chemicals to her body every day via the use of personal care products. In contrast men apply half that number.9
The Environmental Defence, a Canada-based group, issued an alarming report. They tested 49 popular beauty products for eight different heavy metals, and here’s what they found:
HEAVY METAL % OF ITEMS WITH DETECTABLE METAL
Arsenic 20%
Cadmium 51%
Lead 96%
Mercury 0%
Nickel 100%
Beryllium 90%
Thallium 61%
Selenium 14%
The point is, if you’re using popular beauty products, you’re also getting slowly poisoned with heavy metals. Don’t worry though, there are natural-minded companies putting out clean beauty products. The more of the safe, natural beauty products you buy, the more of them there will be on the market.
Unfortunately on top of this, when it comes to medications women appear to be more sensitive to drug side effects than men. Roni Jacobson wrote in an article for the magazine Scientific American that eight out of 10 drugs pulled off the market by the FDA have been shown to have a more negative effect on women than men.10
Fatigue
One of the most commonly reported symptoms of all autoimmune diseases is chronic fatigue. There is a direct link with toxic exposure and autoimmune fatigue.
I researched why chronic fatigue happens in autoimmune diseases by analyzing the top five autoimmune diseases in the U.S. — rheumatoid arthritis, Graves’, Hashimoto’s, fibromyalgia, and lupus. The findings were fascinating revealing one common factor at the base of fatigue in all five diseases.
Right now I'm offering this eBook for free.
Summary
To summarize the three big reasons why women get more autoimmune diseases than men are:
1.) Too Much Estrogen
2.) More Active Immune Systems
3.) More Toxic Exposure
When you consider these points, is there any wonder why women have more autoimmune diseases than men?
Having healed from an autoimmune disease myself, I know from experience how important it is to keep yourself from toxic contamination and to cleanse. If you don’t cut off the toxin supply, you can do all the healthy things you want, but you’ll just be spinning your tires. This is because the toxins will continue to provoke an autoimmune response in your body.
How do I Avoid the Toxins?
Did you know that three of the biggest toxins causing autoimmune diseases are probably right in your kitchen? Take a look to see the top three autoimmune causing toxins.
Top 3 autoimmune causing toxins found in your kitchen.
Sources
- https://www.aarda.org/who-we-help/patients/women-and-autoimmunity/
- http://www.lupusny.org/about-lupus/who-gets-lupus
- http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277177.php
- Eur J Endocrinol. 2004 Mar;150(3):363-9. PMID: 150 12625 BELOW
- Smoking and hormones in health and endocrine disorders doi: 10.1530/eje.1.01867 Eur J Endocrinol April 1, 2005 152 491-499 http://www.eje-online.org/content/152/4/491.full
- Alcoholic Beverages as a Source of Estrogens Judith S. Gavaler, Ph.D. https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh22-3/220.pdf
- Khan D, Ansar Ahmed S. The Immune System Is a Natural Target for Estrogen Action: Opposing Effects of Estrogen in Two Prototypical Autoimmune Diseases. Frontiers in Immunology. 2015;6:635. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2015.00635.
- http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-101089.html
- http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/2004/06/15/exposures-add-up-survey-results/#.WXjvQIqQwxg
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychotropic-drugs-affect-men-and-women-differently/