Highlights

• Sex steroids and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) play a fundamental role in the pathogenesis of cardiometabolic disorders in men and women.
• Increasing evidence suggests that many endocrine-disrupting compounds and phytochemicals can modulate sex-hormone biology and exert adverse health effects through binding sex hormone receptors and interfering with signaling pathways.
• Therefore, research focus on sex differences for the fundamental roles of sex hormones, SHBG, and their environmental disruptors in cardiometabolic health is crucial.

Highlights

• Higher urinary bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations were positively and independently associated with a higher risk of incident central obesity in Chinese adults.
• A significant association has been reported between the prevalence of central obesity and urinary BPA in a Chinese population. The present study adds novel evidence of a prospective association between urinary BPA and risk of central obesity.

Highlights

• From childhood to adulthood, an increase in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) imposes a differentially greater risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for females versus males.
• Conversely, an increase in systolic blood pressure over the life course greatly increases males’ risk of T2DM, but has no effect in females.

Highlights

• The present study found that HbA1c was positively associated with age, whereas fetal hemoglobin (HbF) was negatively associated with age.
• Male subjects had higher HbA1c levels in the 20–59 years age group and lower HbA1c levels in the 60–79 years age group compared with females.
• Sex and age should be considered in the clinical interpretation of HbA1c values.

Highlights

• This large study of postmenopausal women with comprehensive assessment of diet and serum sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) levels indicated that low glycemic load (GL) or glycemic index (GI) and low sugar, but high dietary fiber, were associated with elevated levels of circulating SHBG.
• The findings support the notion that SHBG may be affected by dietary GL, GI, sugar, and fiber, and may also be an important mediator by which various dietary carbohydrates influence the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hormone-dependent cancers.

Highlights

• Adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein (A-FABP) levels are increased in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD).
• Higher A-FABP levels are associated with PAD only in female, and male, patients with T2DM.
• Higher A-FABP levels in female T2DM patients tend to explain the elimination of the “female advantage” regarding the risk of cardiovascular disease with diabetes.

Highlights

• Higher concentrations of triglycerides and lower concentrations of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in early and mid-pregnancy are significantly related to a greater risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).
• Total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations during pregnancy were not associated with risk of GDM.
• This study is based on longitudinal assessments of plasma lipid concentrations across pregnancy in a multiracial/multi-ethnic pregnancy cohort, which is uniquely suited to address temporal associations of plasma lipids in early and mid-pregnancy with the development of subsequent GDM.

Highlights

• Among patients with incident ischemic stroke in the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Stroke Study, younger women and women with coronary artery disease (CAD) were more likely to have diabetes, whereas these associations were not significant for men.
• Our findings suggest that there is a sex-specific association between younger age and incident strokes in women with diabetes. Consequently, women with diabetes may benefit from more aggressive risk factor control.

Highlights

• This study elucidates the potential roles of sex hormones in biological aging, and identified that total and free testosterone levels were inversely associated with telomere length in Asian/Pacific Islander women but not in Black and Hispanic women.
• The findings of the present study suggest that Asian/Pacific Islander women may be susceptible to the potential detrimental effects of high testosterone levels on biologic aging.

Highlights

• In postmenopausal women, higher levels of pessimism were related to worse metabolic function.
• For each additional point on the pessimism scale, a woman's fasting insulin level was 1.2% higher, holding other health-related factors constant, while scoring 1 SD higher was associated with almost 3% higher insulin levels.
• Future research should address whether interventions to modify pessimistic attitudes could potentially reduce a woman's risk of diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease.

Highlights

• In investigating the role of genetic variations in sex hormone pathways and the risk of diabetes, this study found a significant signal in the progesterone receptor (PGR) gene in Hispanic American women. However, this finding was not replicated in other populations.
• The data suggest the need for further studies, especially sex-specific analyses, to confirm the findings of the present study and clarify the role of sex hormone pathways in type 2 diabetes mellitus.