ISSN: 2041-6792

Clinical Investigation

Women's Health News

 In the face of a multipronged front to drive blood pressure up, including a high-salt diet, females are better able to keep their pressure down by increasing levels of a T cell that selectively dials back inflammation, scientists say. Females have an innate ability to upregulate these anti-inflammatory cells, called Tregs, in response to a challenge, says Dr. Jennifer C. Sullivan, pharmacologist and physiologist, noting that the cell's levels are known to increase to help maintain a healthy pregnancy, for example, so the immune system does not attack the fetus, which has DNA from both parents. "This is just a different challenge, but we are using those same protective pathways to do something else good for us," says Sullivan, professor in the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, who studies sex differences in hypertension, the so-called 'silent killer" that is a key risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Tregs are known to help protect us from an excessive immune response, like the cytokine storms causing so much destruction in COVID-19, as well as autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, where our immune system attacks our own tissues, and are naturally associated with lower blood pressures and less organ damage.    

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