title: Sex differences in asthma, atopy, and airway hyperresponsiveness in a university population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A male predominance in atopy, a preadolescent male predominance in asthma, and a female predominance in airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) have been previously documented, mostly in separate populations.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We examined gender differences in a single population of 500 randomly selected university students from a previous publication which addressed sensitivity and specificity of histamine bronchoprovocation (Cockcroft et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 1992;89:23-30).
  
  
  METHODS
  In these 500 subjects (age 21.8 +/- 1.5 years) we assessed gender differences in asthma, atopy, and AHR. We compared our findings with those in the literature from a PUBMED search using the keywords gender, asthma, atopy, AHR, and bronchial reactivity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A diagnosis of asthma made by another physician was seen in 31, a male-to-female ratio of 2.9:1 (P = 0.004). Our definition of asthma increased the total to 52 and reduced the male-to-female ratio to 1.2:1. Atopy was seen in 190, male-to-female ratio of 1.5:1 (P = 0.001). Borderline to mild AHR had a female predominance with a male-to-female ratio of 1:1.5 (P = 0.02), whereas moderate AHR had a marked predominance with a male-to-female ratio of 7:1 (P = 0.03).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our population, the associations among gender and asthma, atopy, and AHR were similar to those seen in the literature with the exception of males having more severe AHR. This may be the one factor contributing to the higher prevalence of asthma (including previous doctor-diagnosed asthma in our population) in boys and young men.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
authors.forename: Elizabeth S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: PausJenssen
authors.forename: Donald W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Cockcroft
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000485:Allergens; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016535:Bronchial Hyperreactivity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006632:Histamine; D006801:Humans; D006969:Hypersensitivity, Immediate / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D012882:Skin Tests; D013147:Spirometry
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens; D006632:Histamine