Conditions That Affect Men and Women Differently

Some mRNA vaccines against diseases like HIV, Zika, and rabies are already in the human trial phase.

The mRNA vaccine technology and its success against COVID-19 have opened doors to explore its uses against a variety of diseases. This is because the makeup and delivery mechanism now provides scientists a basic template to target any virus. They can simply insert the code for a particular viral protein and stimulate your immune system against it. Given that the technology already exists, the turnaround for vaccines could be faster.

COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are given in the upper arm muscle. The mRNA enters your muscle cells and instructs them to make "spike proteins." It's the same type of protein found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which attaches to cells to cause a COVID-19 infection. After your body builds antibodies against the spike protein, it gives you immunity against the real SARS-CoV-2 virus infection.

This mRNA technology uses viral protein because it plays an important role in a successful infection. The protein enables a virus to enter your body, attach itself to a cell, replicate, and spread. mRNA vaccines teach our cells to build antibodies against the protein particle and prevent infection and keep you from getting seriously ill.

mRNA is a type of molecule that has the ability to deliver a specific set of instructions to your cells to make pieces of protein used by certain viruses. This could induce an immune response to fight off a viral attack.

More women live with chronic pain (pain that lasts longer than 6 months and doesn't seem to respond to treatment) than men. Their pain also tends to last longer and be more intense. Doctors are still trying to figure out why, but they think differences in hormones between the sexes may be to blame.

Women are more likely to say they're stressed than men. Both sexes feel anger, crankiness, and muscle tension at near the same rates from stress, but women more often say it causes a headache, upset stomach, or makes them feel like they need to cry. Men are less likely to feel physical symptoms during times of stress than women.

Men are far more likely to lose hair as they age than women. Some 40% of women will have hair thinning or hair loss, but 85% of men will have thinning hair by age 50. Men tend to lose hair in the same pattern -- their hairline goes farther and farther back. (This is called a receding hairline.) They may also get a bald spot on the crown of their head. Women have either thinning all over or random bald patches.

Nearly 55,000 more women than men have strokes each year in the U.S. Common symptoms are sudden weakness on one side, loss of speech and balance, and confusion. But women often have additional or different symptoms: fainting, agitation, hallucinations, vomiting, pain, hiccups, and seizures. Women typically have a worse recovery after a stroke, too.

Men are more likely than women to have serious cases of COVID-19, though it’s not clear why. It could be because men are more likely to have health problems, like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease, that raise the odds for severe COVID-19 symptoms. Another possible reason: Women tend to have stronger immune systems than men, thanks to estrogen.