Sex differences found in early Lyme disease

Men and women with early Lyme disease show different symptoms, test results and clinical signs, according to a new study.

The research analysed data from 243 adults aged 20 to 84, including 118 women and 125 men, diagnosed with early Lyme disease before and after treatment.

Researchers found men were more likely to have a positive laboratory test and to show more obvious, severe indicators of disease at diagnosis, including other laboratory abnormalities.

However, there was no difference between men and women in how long they had been ill.

The study also identified symptoms reported more often by women, including heart palpitations, reported by 11.9 per cent of women compared with 4 per cent of men, vomiting, 7.6 per cent versus less than 1 per cent, and light sensitivity, 17 per cent versus 8.8 per cent.

Sleep difficulty was the only symptom reported more frequently by men, affecting 40 per cent compared with 24.6 per cent of women.

Men were found to have a disease pattern more similar to post-menopausal women than to pre-menopausal women, suggesting sex hormones may influence how early Lyme disease presents.

John Aucott, director of the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center, said: “Males and females are different.

“For both findings, the male group was more similar to females who had undergone menopause and more different from females who had not.”

Further research is needed to determine the cause of these differences and their impact on time to diagnosis and the risk of developing later conditions after treatment.

Aucott said the next step will be to identify the mechanisms, such as hormone levels, underlying these differences.