11 comments

  • t344344 13 days ago
    Maybe they should also exercise, eat healthy, not be obese, avoid stress... All of that may boost vaccine effect! That does not apply to women, because they are gorgeous, and we should not tell them what to do.

    What a garbage!

    • JusticeJuice 12 days ago
      > That does not apply to women, because they are gorgeous, and we should not tell them what to do.

      I am baffled how you took that away from the article. Did we read the same thing? This is what they had to say about the results for women.

      > As for why the results in women were not significant, Dr Spiegel and her colleagues theorise that sleep affects female response to vaccines too but that hormone interference, driven by varying stages of the menstrual cycle, contraception and hormone-replacement therapies, is probably altering immune response in profound and unknown ways that throw off the results. It is a subject area that urgently needs more attention, argue the researchers.

      ???

      • SamoyedFurFluff 12 days ago
        Wait, hormone replacement therapies in women? I don’t understand this one. If we are referring to transgender women, I think they’re like less than 1% of the population or something so it doesn’t make sense to rule out all women for an outlier. If we are referring to menopausal women, I don’t believe hormone replacement for menopause is very popular (I heard it causes health problems??). Also don’t men also get hormone replacement, ie they use steroids to get buff but also increasingly the concern of being low-testosterone has caused an increase of men supplementing testosterone especially when older?
        • ntlk 12 days ago
          HRT for menopause is very common. “Around 15% of women aged 45 to 64 in England are currently prescribed HRT, which has increased rapidly in the last 2 years from around 11% and continues to increase.” as per https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hundreds-of-thousands-of-...
          • SamoyedFurFluff 12 days ago
            Oh TIl thanks. I thought hrt for menopause was quite rare
        • dontlaugh 12 days ago
          Hormone replacement is common treatment for menopause, but indeed for some women it’s not an option due to particularly bad side effects.

          Men don’t typically need hormone replacement in old age, testosterone production rarely drops much, if at all. It’s why we grow bald, after all.

          • Reason077 12 days ago
            Testosterone absolutely declines in men, but it's gradual over your lifetime rather than a rapid change like the menopause. Typically, T peaks in your late teens, then declines around 1-2% per year for the rest of your life.
            • sandworm101 12 days ago
              Until you qualify as "low T". They the docs prescribe you enough testosterone supplement that to you get bored with golf and start power lifting. You ain't "juicing" if your doctor is the one selling the pills.
            • dontlaugh 12 days ago
              Sure. It’s also comparatively small drop that rarely needs treatment.
        • aww_dang 12 days ago
          Perhaps it was a reference to birth control.
          • AlecSchueler 12 days ago
            Sometimes it's frightening to see what a male centric community HN is but this is hilarious.
            • ben_w 12 days ago
              As a guy, sad more than funny.

              My sex ed at (UK Catholic) school was terrible and I can't really say I know any better than the rest of the comments here, despite both curiosity and actually asking questions when dating women. (Without asking cis women, I wouldn't have guessed that low BMI can inhibit periods, nor that The Pill can sometimes make periods worse rather than better, nor the ways the implant can go wrong; and without knowing a trans woman specifically I wouldn't have found out about different bone density, though I can't remember how that came up in conversation now as she and I never dated).

              It is a bad thing that so many men don't/didn't get taught about the lived experiences of (just over) half the population, and are/have been just expected to find them alien and impossible to understand.

          • azalemeth 12 days ago
            The menopause or perimenopausal period, more like.
          • ben_w 12 days ago
            The researchers[0] listed that with an "and" rather than a "for example".

            > varying stages of the menstrual cycle, contraception and hormone-replacement therapies

            [0] or at least the @JusticeJuice quotation, as the free version of the article doesn't contain the link to the actual research paper…

            • JusticeJuice 12 days ago
              https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)...

              From the paper's discussion

              > Given that sex impacts the response to vaccine,9,25 we calculated separate overall ES for men and women. When sleep was assessed objectively, the pooled ES was large and highly significant for men, whereas it was smaller and not significant for women, likely due to the wide variations in sex hormone levels according to phase of the menstrual cycle, use of hormonal contraception, menopausal status, and use of hormonal replacement in post-menopausal women.25 None of the studies included in our meta-analysis controlled for these known hormonal modulators of immune function.

              • ben_w 12 days ago
                Thanks! :)
    • Brigand 12 days ago
      It’s the data that shows the situation for women is less clear. This is good advice: when getting vaccinated make sure to get a good night sleep. Why the outrage?
      • t344344 12 days ago
        Did you read the paragraph about women? It says there was too much noise in data, they could not measure positive effect of sleep! What conclusions medical professional would derive from that?

        Secondly I really do not like the overall tone of the article.

        • is_true 12 days ago
          That's how science works. They tried to reduce uncertainty, they couldn't, now they have to try something else.
        • moreresearchplz 12 days ago
          > What conclusions medical professional would derive from that?

          More research. Which is exactly what they plead for in their paper.

        • AlecSchueler 12 days ago
          This is a constant problem in studying the effects of medicine. For years we've simply ignored women's bodies (default man) in many studies but we're increasingly seeing reasons why that's not such a good idea.

          Really recommend the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez to anyone interested in this and the problems that stem from it for women.

    • praxulus 12 days ago
      >Dr Spiegel says that encouraging patients to get plenty of sleep before and after a vaccination appointment is an ideal way for a medical system to maximise its vaccine stock and ensure that the benefits granted are as large as possible.

      They don't limit their recommendation to only men, all patients should be encouraged to get plenty of sleep.

      What on earth are you talking about?

    • jgerrish 12 days ago
      Hackernews provides a cool space on the Internet at this brief moment in time. It's wonderful randomly seeing passionate voices that are experts in their field speak up in comments.

      Your input is appreciated, but I hope this space doesn't help breed hatred.

      It's tough in today's world resisting the urge to take down others when we're suffering. But we all lose when we alienate those others who can bring intellectual sparks of joy into this world. Every voice matters, however brief it is.

      • favaq 12 days ago
        His message, at least the way I read it, is a message of love for men. It's sad that you have seen hatred in it. Perhaps you should reflect.
    • sandworm101 12 days ago
      I was turned off before the part about women. Im too tired for more lectures about how im supposed to spend more time being less tired. Sunday morning. The boss needs something done by 0900 and then i have a conference call at 1000 ( a "coms check" ahead of the real call monday morning). So it's time to stop reading about sleep and do the thing that pays the bills.
      • cactusplant7374 12 days ago
        What company in tech has mandatory Sunday work?

        Seems a little extreme. I'm guessing most companies don't have this so the best option is to work for one of them.

        • sandworm101 12 days ago
          Military. We have an important teleconference monday morning with some new people using new systems (0500 local, noon in europe). That means we need to do a coms check today (sunday) if we want to have enough time to iron out any details. Sunday is also a better time for such things as the systems/rooms are not already booked for other things. So we can run late without having to bump other groups off of equipment/networks/rooms etc. But there are lots of civilian tech jobs that require work on the weekends too. Data centers do not shut down on weekends, nor do the millions of network connections that tie everything together.
    • Eumenes 12 days ago
      You can do all those things, and not get a vaccine, and be in good shape too!
    • astrange 12 days ago
      It's certainly believable their immune systems don't work exactly the same way. Men usually feel sicker when they get ill as well IIRC.
    • andy_ppp 12 days ago
      My guess is that this study is a load of nonsense, they are probably just picking up a signal for how generally healthy a population is rather than any real difference in vaccination efficacy. We know healthy people fight the virus better, how do you effectively remove that from the fighting the virus better by vaccination? Having slept well sounds like something people who would fight COVID better anyway would do. Does anyone have a link to the paper so I can see if they try to factor for these?
      • JusticeJuice 12 days ago
        https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)...

        AFAIK, it's established that white blood cells are mainly produced when sleeping. So seems reasonable that lower white blood cell count makes vaccines less effective - in the same way vaccination for people with weaker immune systems are less effective.

      • t344344 12 days ago
        I assume it is this one. Will not post direct link.

        A meta-analysis of the associations between insufficient sleep duration and antibody response to vaccination K. Spiegel, A. Rey, A. Cheylus, K. Ayling, C. Benedict, T. Lange, A. Prather, Daniel J. Taylor, M. Irwin, E. van Cauter less Published 1 March 2023 Medicine, Biology, Psychology Current Biology

  • bluenose69 12 days ago
    The actual paper is available in PDF form at https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2823%2900..., in case anybody wants to look at the statistics.
  • DeathArrow 12 days ago
    I will conjecture that for anything to work properly is good to have a good night's sleep. :)
  • helsinkiandrew 13 days ago
  • inglor_cz 13 days ago
    People should get a good night's sleep anyway.

    This includes the adolescents for whom the school starts way too early.

    • Traubenfuchs 12 days ago
      > This includes the adolescents for whom the school starts way too early.

      Unfortunately, societies interest in improving public health is non existent even with plenty of low cost, high reward actions that are known and proven beyond doubt.

  • thuridas 13 days ago
    It makes a lot of sense. Stress and lack off sleep affect the immunitary system.

    And imagine if we could improve the effectiveness of vaccines in half of the world population by applying then in the right moment of them menstrual cycle.

  • sendfoods 13 days ago
    Very interesting.

    There is some evidence (to my limited knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong) that testosterone has some immune-inhibiting properties and women's immune systems are more reactive. Can this simply be a case of men's immune systems reacting to the antibodies at a slower pace?

    • jml78 12 days ago
      Women are more prone to autoimmune diseases as well.
    • iz_zi 13 days ago
      [flagged]
      • Brigand 12 days ago
        HN is a great resource for exchanging ideas, knowledge, and valuable insights. I believe we can keep it that way by fostering a social and friendly atmosphere.
        • iz_zi 12 days ago
          You’re stuck up because I called someone out for making statements about gender science and not citing their sources. Go shove your words up as far as your head~
        • iz_zi 12 days ago
          [flagged]
  • chillbill 12 days ago
    How to Lie with Statistics 101: It's self reported short sleep and a tiny sample size of 299 people aged 18 to 65.

    Smells like BS.

  • fithisux 12 days ago
    Oh, not again :-(
  • jamesredd 13 days ago
    [flagged]
    • Reason077 12 days ago
      Yeah, now they’re teaming up with the sleep lobby? These pro-vaxxers will stop at nothing to improve our health and save lives.

      Who’s funding these studies anyway? Bed manufacturers? Always follow the money!

  • petodo 12 days ago
    [flagged]