Abstract
Masculinity-related morphological traits are supposed to be honest indicators of a man's biological quality. While some studies showed that sexually dimorphic traits are related to various aspects of biological condition such as general health, immunity or fertility, still little is known about the relationship between masculine traits and the effectiveness of innate and adaptive immunity in humans. The aim of this study was to see if masculine traits, which are dependent on androgen levels in foetal and pubertal stages of development, are related to the immune quality in healthy men. The immune quality was evaluated for 91 healthy men aged 19–36 years. Immunity measurements included innate and adaptive parameters. General health status, age, testosterone level, BMI, physical activity, and smoking were controlled. The shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR), 2D:4D digit ratio and hand-grip strength (HGS) were used as markers of masculinization. The regressions showed that when controlling for confounds, masculinity-related traits were in general not related to innate and adaptive immunity. Only a weak association was observed for right 2D:4D ratio and T-lymphocyte counts (but it becomes non-significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons). Our results do not support the premise that masculinity is a cue for immunological quality in men. However, the positive association between right 2D:4D and T lymphocytes might suggest that further studies are needed to verify if androgen stimulation in prenatal development might be related to immunity in adulthood.
Highlights
Darwin’s (1871) [1] theory of sexual selection posits that sexually dimorphic traits are adaptive as they are involved in intrasexual competition and intersexual choice
Using linear regression we analysed the relationship between each age max hand-grip strength (HGS) shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR) right 2D:4D digit ratio (2D):4D left 2D:4D Body Mass Index (BMI) Body height fT Innate immunity
The separate models were carried out for each immune function. These analyses revealed that HGS is not related to any of the analysed immune parameters
Summary
Darwin’s (1871) [1] theory of sexual selection posits that sexually dimorphic traits are adaptive as they are involved in intrasexual competition and intersexual choice. Individuals with highly expressed sexually selected traits can more effectively attract a member of the opposite sex and reach higher reproductive success, having more and healthier offspring (especially men). Some evolutionary hypotheses, such as the good genes hypothesis, suggest that sexually dimorphic traits can be linked with various aspects of an individual’s biological condition including immune system effectiveness [2, 3]. Traits such as masculinity in men or femininity in women, are sex-typical characteristics dependent on sex hormone proportions and are developed prenatally or mostly at puberty.
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