Does Liver Disease Treat Male & Female Equally?

Does Liver Disease Treat Male & Female Equally?

Gender equality is usually viewed as a movement regarding equal opportunities and compensation despite the sexual category. However, have you ever paid attention to that diseases might not treat males and females equally?

The physiological differences between males’ and females’ bodies cause a couple of liver-related gender disparities.

Emerging as a valuable field of research, gender-based medicine may be a new concept investigating how disease manifests differently in males and females and will also warrant the different evaluation, monitoring, and treatment in them.

The Liver performs equivalent Critical Functions for Male and females. Regardless of their gender, the liver, our body’s largest solid organ, performs an equivalent key function for both males and females. Few of them are listed below

 Function For Both Male and Female:

• Filters toxins out of the bloodstream
• Makes bile, a fluid that aids in the digestion of food especially fats
• Stores extra glucose as glycogen for when the body needs it for energy
• Produces blood-clotting factors
• Makes amino acids the building blocks for proteins including amino acids fight infection fight infection
• Processes and stores iron for red blood corpuscle production
• Manufactures hormones, cholesterol, and other chemicals needed to move fat
• Converts waste products into urea for excretion through urine
• Metabolizes chemicals and medications

About Liver Injury and Diseases:

Liver disease may be a broad term describing various problems that interfere with our liver’s ability to function and may cause significant damage to your liver’s ability to meet its daily responsibilities. However, our liver one of a kind and so is its ability to replace damaged cells.

But, if the source of injury is persistent, the liver damage cells can outpace liver regeneration cells and our liver might not be capable of reversing this damage. This imbalance results in fibrosis, areas of dead liver cells that cause scarring and, if the damage grows, it can life-threatening.

Some of the more common forms of the disease include:

• Infectious hepatitis – Liver cell inflammation that’s caused by an outbreak, such as hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and hepatitis D.
• Autoimmune hepatitis – When the body’s self-defense mechanism, which ordinarily attacks viruses, bacteria and other pathogens, instead of targeting the liver.
• Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) – Primary malignant neoplasm of the liver.
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease(NAFLD) – Described as the buildup of fat within the liver that’s not caused by drinking alcohol. If NAFLD progresses, it can cause liver inflammation that gently hampers liver function.
• Alcoholic disease (ALD) – Occurring after years of heavy drinking, ALD damages the liver, results in a buildup of fat within the liver, causing inflammation, and fibrosis. If unchecked, ALD typically results in cirrhosis.
• Primary biliary cholangitis – A chronic disease caused by progressive destruction of the bile ducts.
• Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) – It’s a complication of advanced disease where toxins accumulate within the brain.
• Acetaminophen-induced acute liver injury – Patients unintentionally take too much acetaminophen and/or other analgesics.

Gender Differences and Disease:

Examining the difference in disease between males and females is an emerging area of research. Though, clinicians have recognized gender variances within the epidemiology, progression, and treatment strategies of certain liver diseases for a short time.

Conclusion:

While the sector of gender-based hepatology is in its infancy, scholars surmise the differences in liver disease expression are likely because of sex hormones, human body size/mass, and metabolic variations by gender.

Ultimately, learning about different outcomes of disease in males and females can influence testing, predictions, and treatment on basis of gender – an approach that would eventually reduce the general burden of liver disease.