{"id":236767,"date":"2026-05-08T06:08:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/study-of-a-million-blood-cells-helps-explain-why-women-face-more-autoimmune-disease"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:08:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:08:36","slug":"study-of-a-million-blood-cells-helps-explain-why-women-face-more-autoimmune-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/study-of-a-million-blood-cells-helps-explain-why-women-face-more-autoimmune-disease","title":{"rendered":"Study of a Million Blood Cells Helps Explain Why Women Face More Autoimmune Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/study-of-a-million-blood-cells-helps-explain-why-women-face-more-autoimmune-disease.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Autoimmune diseases, where the body\u2019s own immune system mistakenly goes on the attack, are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/4-out-of-5-autoimmune-patients-are-female-the-x-chromosome-could-explain-why\">much more common<\/a> in women \u2013 and a new study analyzing more than 1.25 million blood cells goes a long way to explaining why.<\/p>\n<p>The analysis, led by a team from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, revealed over 1,000 genetic \u2018switches\u2019 in immune cells that work differently depending on sex.<\/p>\n<p>In short, these variations in gene activity mean that inflammatory pathways that respond to threats are likely to be busier in women, leading to a greater risk of conditions like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/lupus-tracked-to-changes-in-a-single-gene-that-tames-the-immune-system\">lupus<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/women-face-much-higher-ms-risk-a-new-discovery-may-help-explain-why\">multiple sclerosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Autoimmune diseases, where the body\u2019s own immune system mistakenly goes on the attack, are much more common in women \u2013 and a new study analyzing more than 1.25 million blood cells goes a long way to explaining why. The analysis, led by a team from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, revealed over [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47,1901],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience","category-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}