Readit News logoReadit News
francisofascii · 2 years ago
> A tantalizing clue stemmed from men who have two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome, a rare condition called Klinefelter syndrome. These men run a much higher risk of suffering from autoimmune diseases, suggesting that the number of X chromosomes plays an important role.

Interesting. And apparently this is pretty common. Less than 1 in 1000 male births.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 2 years ago
> Less than 1 in 1000 male births.

Just for clarity:

<1 in 1000 or;

1 in <1000?

I assume the latter because the former is less obvious as "pretty common" given that <1 could be something like 1e-10, but it's not clear as written.

francisofascii · 2 years ago
Yes. Sorry. 1 in <1000.
phnofive · 2 years ago
Speaking of, here's a study showing a reduction (sort of) in autoimmunity in such persons following a course of TRT:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1905740/

codersfocus · 2 years ago
A molecule responsible for deactivating women’s second X chromosome is responsible
thelastparadise · 2 years ago
> Women typically have two X chromosomes

Isn't this actually the definition of female?

TheCoelacanth · 2 years ago
No, there are cases where males have two X chromosomes[1][2], cases where females have more[3] or less[4] than two and of course trans-women who most commonly have XY chromosomes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XXYY_syndrome

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisomy_X

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_syndrome

altairprime · 2 years ago
> > Women typically have two X chromosomes

> Isn't this actually the definition of female?

‘Women’ and ‘female’ are not interchangeable; one is a gender characteristic, the other is a sex characteristic. The statement as made is valid: Women are statistically likely to be XX, rather than XY or XXY or no doubt many other variations. ‘XX is female’ is a convenient rubric that is easy to remember, but as is usual for such things, human bodies do not respect convenient rubrics regarding genetics and sexes.

viisio · 2 years ago
No, they're both sex characteristics. It's just that there are individuals with sex chromosome aneuploidies who will develop a female phenotype, e.g. X0 (Turner syndrome) and XXX (trisomy X), and also XY individuals where the Y chromosome is deficient in specific ways, e.g. Swyer syndrome.
tzs · 2 years ago
> ‘Women’ and ‘female’ are not interchangeable; one is a gender characteristic, the other is a sex characteristic.

That's not what most dictionaries say. They say a 'woman' is an adult female human.

n8henrie · 2 years ago
Perhaps you meant "'XX is female' is a convenient rubric"?
supertofu · 2 years ago
Turner syndrome describes a biological female with just one X chromosome.
AussieWog93 · 2 years ago
Come on man. This article is about autoimmune diseases, not witty quips about trans women.