Yesterday, R asked about gender and Lupus! Both gender and race are fascinating components of Lupus, so I thought it would make a great post for our final Friday of the month.
Below the age of 40, 90% of people with Lupus are female. However, after the age of 40, men comprise 11-12% of newly diagnosed cases. This gender disparity is why researchers believe there is a hormonal component to Lupus– and men increase slightly after age 40 because of the “male menopause”, also called andropause. However, recent research disputes the hormone explanation, and raises the question of chromosonal influence.
While the median age for diagnosis is 30 in women and 40 in men, between 5-10,000 children are diagnosed with Lupus in the United States every year.
Race also plays a significant role. Women of African descent are three times more likely to get Lupus than white women. Latina women and Asian women are twice as likely to get Lupus than white women. Indigenous North American women are also more likely to get Lupus, though there seem to be fewer studies on them. Sjogren’s, the other auto-immune disorder which the doc thinks I may have, is again 90% more likely in women. It also has a genetic predisposition component which is more likely to be found in people from Northern and Western Europe.
I could, of course, write a book on this, given more space and time. Maybe there is a genetic component, and maybe there are connections to race and structural inequality. Do African American women get Lupus more because of their genes, or because they are more likely to live in poor quality housing, which increases the risk of an environmental factor triggering their illness, like the mold triggered mine? How much of what we attribute to race is structural? How much is genetic?
Wondering what’s going on with these posts? Check out my explanation HERE!
This Isolation Life 