In a recent collaborative work between Miguel Constância and Susan Ozanne groups and published in the journal Nature Metabolism, the authors reviewed the importance of studying sex differences in response to pre-conception or early-life exposures that could lead to the known sexual dimorphism in susceptibility to poor metabolic health in adulthood. The role of biological sex is an important and often overlooked issue in metabolic studies. This is a particularly timely paper in the light of the recent announcement by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Medical Research Council (MRC) that the use of both sexes will be default for all future grant applications.

Reference:

Sandovici I, Fernandez-Twinn DS, Hufnagel A, Constância M, Ozanne SE. Sex differences in the intergenerational inheritance of metabolic traits. Nat Metab. 2022 May 30. doi: 10.1038/s42255-022-00570-4.