To ensure vaccines work properly, men should get a good night’s sleep(economist.com)
economist.com
To ensure vaccines work properly, men should get a good night’s sleep
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/03/15/to-ensure-vaccines-work-properly-men-should-get-a-good-nights-sleep
51 comments
> That does not apply to women, because they are gorgeous, and we should not tell them what to do.
I am baffled how you took that away from the article. Did we read the same thing? This is what they had to say about the results for women.
> As for why the results in women were not significant, Dr Spiegel and her colleagues theorise that sleep affects female response to vaccines too but that hormone interference, driven by varying stages of the menstrual cycle, contraception and hormone-replacement therapies, is probably altering immune response in profound and unknown ways that throw off the results. It is a subject area that urgently needs more attention, argue the researchers.
???
I am baffled how you took that away from the article. Did we read the same thing? This is what they had to say about the results for women.
> As for why the results in women were not significant, Dr Spiegel and her colleagues theorise that sleep affects female response to vaccines too but that hormone interference, driven by varying stages of the menstrual cycle, contraception and hormone-replacement therapies, is probably altering immune response in profound and unknown ways that throw off the results. It is a subject area that urgently needs more attention, argue the researchers.
???
Wait, hormone replacement therapies in women? I don’t understand this one. If we are referring to transgender women, I think they’re like less than 1% of the population or something so it doesn’t make sense to rule out all women for an outlier. If we are referring to menopausal women, I don’t believe hormone replacement for menopause is very popular (I heard it causes health problems??). Also don’t men also get hormone replacement, ie they use steroids to get buff but also increasingly the concern of being low-testosterone has caused an increase of men supplementing testosterone especially when older?
HRT for menopause is very common. “Around 15% of women aged 45 to 64 in England are currently prescribed HRT, which has increased rapidly in the last 2 years from around 11% and continues to increase.” as per https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hundreds-of-thousands-of-...
Oh TIl thanks. I thought hrt for menopause was quite rare
Perhaps it was a reference to birth control.
Sometimes it's frightening to see what a male centric community HN is but this is hilarious.
As a guy, sad more than funny.
My sex ed at (UK Catholic) school was terrible and I can't really say I know any better than the rest of the comments here, despite both curiosity and actually asking questions when dating women. (Without asking cis women, I wouldn't have guessed that low BMI can inhibit periods, nor that The Pill can sometimes make periods worse rather than better, nor the ways the implant can go wrong; and without knowing a trans woman specifically I wouldn't have found out about different bone density, though I can't remember how that came up in conversation now as she and I never dated).
It is a bad thing that so many men don't/didn't get taught about the lived experiences of (just over) half the population, and are/have been just expected to find them alien and impossible to understand.
My sex ed at (UK Catholic) school was terrible and I can't really say I know any better than the rest of the comments here, despite both curiosity and actually asking questions when dating women. (Without asking cis women, I wouldn't have guessed that low BMI can inhibit periods, nor that The Pill can sometimes make periods worse rather than better, nor the ways the implant can go wrong; and without knowing a trans woman specifically I wouldn't have found out about different bone density, though I can't remember how that came up in conversation now as she and I never dated).
It is a bad thing that so many men don't/didn't get taught about the lived experiences of (just over) half the population, and are/have been just expected to find them alien and impossible to understand.
The menopause or perimenopausal period, more like.
The researchers[0] listed that with an "and" rather than a "for example".
> varying stages of the menstrual cycle, contraception and hormone-replacement therapies
[0] or at least the @JusticeJuice quotation, as the free version of the article doesn't contain the link to the actual research paper…
> varying stages of the menstrual cycle, contraception and hormone-replacement therapies
[0] or at least the @JusticeJuice quotation, as the free version of the article doesn't contain the link to the actual research paper…
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)...
From the paper's discussion
> Given that sex impacts the response to vaccine,9,25 we calculated separate overall ES for men and women. When sleep was assessed objectively, the pooled ES was large and highly significant for men, whereas it was smaller and not significant for women, likely due to the wide variations in sex hormone levels according to phase of the menstrual cycle, use of hormonal contraception, menopausal status, and use of hormonal replacement in post-menopausal women.25 None of the studies included in our meta-analysis controlled for these known hormonal modulators of immune function.
From the paper's discussion
> Given that sex impacts the response to vaccine,9,25 we calculated separate overall ES for men and women. When sleep was assessed objectively, the pooled ES was large and highly significant for men, whereas it was smaller and not significant for women, likely due to the wide variations in sex hormone levels according to phase of the menstrual cycle, use of hormonal contraception, menopausal status, and use of hormonal replacement in post-menopausal women.25 None of the studies included in our meta-analysis controlled for these known hormonal modulators of immune function.
Thanks! :)
Hormone replacement is common treatment for menopause, but indeed for some women it’s not an option due to particularly bad side effects.
Men don’t typically need hormone replacement in old age, testosterone production rarely drops much, if at all. It’s why we grow bald, after all.
Men don’t typically need hormone replacement in old age, testosterone production rarely drops much, if at all. It’s why we grow bald, after all.
Testosterone absolutely declines in men, but it's gradual over your lifetime rather than a rapid change like the menopause. Typically, T peaks in your late teens, then declines around 1-2% per year for the rest of your life.
Until you qualify as "low T". They the docs prescribe you enough testosterone supplement that to you get bored with golf and start power lifting. You ain't "juicing" if your doctor is the one selling the pills.
Sure. It’s also comparatively small drop that rarely needs treatment.
[deleted]
It’s the data that shows the situation for women is less clear. This is good advice: when getting vaccinated make sure to get a good night sleep. Why the outrage?
Did you read the paragraph about women? It says there was too much noise in data, they could not measure positive effect of sleep! What conclusions medical professional would derive from that?
Secondly I really do not like the overall tone of the article.
Secondly I really do not like the overall tone of the article.
That's how science works. They tried to reduce uncertainty, they couldn't, now they have to try something else.
> What conclusions medical professional would derive from that?
More research. Which is exactly what they plead for in their paper.
More research. Which is exactly what they plead for in their paper.
This is a constant problem in studying the effects of medicine. For years we've simply ignored women's bodies (default man) in many studies but we're increasingly seeing reasons why that's not such a good idea.
Really recommend the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez to anyone interested in this and the problems that stem from it for women.
Really recommend the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez to anyone interested in this and the problems that stem from it for women.
>Dr Spiegel says that encouraging patients to get plenty of sleep before and after a vaccination appointment is an ideal way for a medical system to maximise its vaccine stock and ensure that the benefits granted are as large as possible.
They don't limit their recommendation to only men, all patients should be encouraged to get plenty of sleep.
What on earth are you talking about?
They don't limit their recommendation to only men, all patients should be encouraged to get plenty of sleep.
What on earth are you talking about?
Hackernews provides a cool space on the Internet at this brief moment in time. It's wonderful randomly seeing passionate voices that are experts in their field speak up in comments.
Your input is appreciated, but I hope this space doesn't help breed hatred.
It's tough in today's world resisting the urge to take down others when we're suffering. But we all lose when we alienate those others who can bring intellectual sparks of joy into this world. Every voice matters, however brief it is.
Your input is appreciated, but I hope this space doesn't help breed hatred.
It's tough in today's world resisting the urge to take down others when we're suffering. But we all lose when we alienate those others who can bring intellectual sparks of joy into this world. Every voice matters, however brief it is.
His message, at least the way I read it, is a message of love for men. It's sad that you have seen hatred in it. Perhaps you should reflect.
I was turned off before the part about women. Im too tired for more lectures about how im supposed to spend more time being less tired. Sunday morning. The boss needs something done by 0900 and then i have a conference call at 1000 ( a "coms check" ahead of the real call monday morning). So it's time to stop reading about sleep and do the thing that pays the bills.
What company in tech has mandatory Sunday work?
Seems a little extreme. I'm guessing most companies don't have this so the best option is to work for one of them.
Seems a little extreme. I'm guessing most companies don't have this so the best option is to work for one of them.
Military. We have an important teleconference monday morning with some new people using new systems (0500 local, noon in europe). That means we need to do a coms check today (sunday) if we want to have enough time to iron out any details. Sunday is also a better time for such things as the systems/rooms are not already booked for other things. So we can run late without having to bump other groups off of equipment/networks/rooms etc. But there are lots of civilian tech jobs that require work on the weekends too. Data centers do not shut down on weekends, nor do the millions of network connections that tie everything together.
You can do all those things, and not get a vaccine, and be in good shape too!
It's certainly believable their immune systems don't work exactly the same way. Men usually feel sicker when they get ill as well IIRC.
My guess is that this study is a load of nonsense, they are probably just picking up a signal for how generally healthy a population is rather than any real difference in vaccination efficacy. We know healthy people fight the virus better, how do you effectively remove that from the fighting the virus better by vaccination? Having slept well sounds like something people who would fight COVID better anyway would do. Does anyone have a link to the paper so I can see if they try to factor for these?
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)...
AFAIK, it's established that white blood cells are mainly produced when sleeping. So seems reasonable that lower white blood cell count makes vaccines less effective - in the same way vaccination for people with weaker immune systems are less effective.
AFAIK, it's established that white blood cells are mainly produced when sleeping. So seems reasonable that lower white blood cell count makes vaccines less effective - in the same way vaccination for people with weaker immune systems are less effective.
I assume it is this one. Will not post direct link.
A meta-analysis of the associations between insufficient sleep duration and antibody response to vaccination K. Spiegel, A. Rey, A. Cheylus, K. Ayling, C. Benedict, T. Lange, A. Prather, Daniel J. Taylor, M. Irwin, E. van Cauter less Published 1 March 2023 Medicine, Biology, Psychology Current Biology
A meta-analysis of the associations between insufficient sleep duration and antibody response to vaccination K. Spiegel, A. Rey, A. Cheylus, K. Ayling, C. Benedict, T. Lange, A. Prather, Daniel J. Taylor, M. Irwin, E. van Cauter less Published 1 March 2023 Medicine, Biology, Psychology Current Biology
The actual paper is available in PDF form at https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2823%2900..., in case anybody wants to look at the statistics.
I will conjecture that for anything to work properly is good to have a good night's sleep. :)
People should get a good night's sleep anyway.
This includes the adolescents for whom the school starts way too early.
This includes the adolescents for whom the school starts way too early.
> This includes the adolescents for whom the school starts way too early.
Unfortunately, societies interest in improving public health is non existent even with plenty of low cost, high reward actions that are known and proven beyond doubt.
Unfortunately, societies interest in improving public health is non existent even with plenty of low cost, high reward actions that are known and proven beyond doubt.
It makes a lot of sense. Stress and lack off sleep affect the immunitary system.
And imagine if we could improve the effectiveness of vaccines in half of the world population by applying then in the right moment of them menstrual cycle.
And imagine if we could improve the effectiveness of vaccines in half of the world population by applying then in the right moment of them menstrual cycle.
Very interesting.
There is some evidence (to my limited knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong) that testosterone has some immune-inhibiting properties and women's immune systems are more reactive. Can this simply be a case of men's immune systems reacting to the antibodies at a slower pace?
There is some evidence (to my limited knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong) that testosterone has some immune-inhibiting properties and women's immune systems are more reactive. Can this simply be a case of men's immune systems reacting to the antibodies at a slower pace?
How to Lie with Statistics 101: It's self reported short sleep and a tiny sample size of 299 people aged 18 to 65.
Smells like BS.
Smells like BS.
Oh, not again :-(
jamesredd(1)
What a garbage!