Of Genes and Men: The Alternative View of Sex Differences in Cystic Fibrosis
Response to Sims et al. and Milla et al.
- Marc Creus, PHD,
- Wolfgang Vogel, MD and
- Heinz Zoller, MD
- Clinical Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
- Address correspondence to Heinz Zoller, MD, Innsbruck Medical University, Clinical Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Anichstrasse 35, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria. E-mail: heinz.zoller{at}uibk.ac.at
Female subjects with cystic fibrosis–related diabetes have a worse prognosis than male subjects according to two independent studies recently published in Diabetes Care (1, 2). It has been known for some time that females with cystic fibrosis generally have a significantly higher mortality than males from age 1 to 20 years (3), a sex difference that remains despite radical improvement in survival rates through the years (4). Are these differences a result of evolutionary, sex-specific selective pressures? We propose an evolutionary explanation for the observed sex differences in cystic fibrosis.
Congenital bilateral …
