Abstract
In this latest lecture, I explore the fact that most human diseases exhibit sex-specific differences in prevalence, age of onset and/or severity. This includes neurological and psychiatric disorders; cardiovascular disease, which is predominant in men in adulthood, but more common in post-menopausal women than in men; asthma, which is more prevalent in boys in childhood, but more common in girls at puberty and beyond; several types of cancer.
Finally, autoimmune diseases are the most striking case in point, as they are much more prevalent in women throughout their lives, but particularly so in the case of diseases that begin during or immediately after the reproductive years. It turns out that the X chromosome has the highest density of immune-related genes of any chromosome. It seems important that these genes are correctly regulated, particularly in the cells of the immune system.
