SLE and Females

[mdeast]

So I was just watching some boards lectures from a free course at my university.

One of the professors started talking about the mechanism as to why women were more susceptible to develop autoimmune diseases and in particular, SLE. He mentioned that the prototypical lupus patient is a young woman of reproductive age. His mechanism explaining this is menstruation- that monthly breakdown of endometrium consistently exposes the female immune system to self-antigens (i.e. DNA, etc.) making it much more likely for women to develop autoimmune diseases.

Is this the real mechanism? Certainly there are other inherited factors that contribute to autoimmune diseases (i.e. they can run in families, are more prevalent in certain ethnic groups, etc.). But, I've never actually heard a good explanation as to why women are more likely to develop autoimmune diseases as compared to men.

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[Morsetlis]

That's the exact same thing my Immuno professor said.

 

[shan564]

I've read elsewhere that testosterone suppresses autoimmunity somehow. I can't remember the mechanism...

 

[Val7]

A Dermatology professor at my school said the same thing, so I think it is true. Don't know about the Testosterone thing- doesn't make sense...