The Gender Bender effect in Periodontal Immune Response

Title:The Gender Bender effect in Periodontal Immune Response

Volume: 16 Issue: 1

Author(s): Vishakha Grover, Ashish Jain, Anoop Kapoor, Ranjan Malhotra and Gurparkash Singh Chahal

Affiliation:

Keywords: Aging, endocrine hormones, gender, immune cells, periodontal disease, sex steroids, systemic disease.

Abstract: Background: The gender and sex of an individual is known to have a significant bearing on the immune system, responsible for protection against infections and disease. Contemporary evidence suggests there exists a sexual dimorphism in the hetero immune as well as autoimmune responses in human beings and females show stronger and more vigorous immune responses to antigenic stimulations, e.g infectious diseases and vaccination. The evidence supportive to gender based heterogeneity in immune responses specifically in context of periodontal disease, is mounting in contemporary literature.

Method: A thorough and methodical search for related scientific publications have been accomplished by using different key words and terms like sex or gender based immune differences in periodontal disease, both by manual methods and on various electronic databases. Primary research articles, narrative and systematic reviews of good quality, relevant to the subject were included.

Results: The aggregate effects of the factors related to gender such as the steroid hormones as well as gene based differences in both sexes as supported by published literature are in line with the observed variation in susceptibility for chronic periodontitis in both genders , with males showing more risk for disease than women.

Conclusion: Gender as a risk factor for periodontal disease needs to identified, its underlying mechanisms to contribute needs to be revealed, so that novel strategies for risk assessment, disease identification and individualized therapeutic approaches can be developed for optimized patient care.

Cite this article as:

Grover Vishakha, Jain Ashish, Kapoor Anoop, Malhotra Ranjan and Singh Chahal Gurparkash, The Gender Bender effect in Periodontal Immune Response, Endocrine, Metabolic & Immune Disorders - Drug Targets 2016; 16 (1) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1871530316666160107111301