Females' regenerating advantage

Men might build more muscle, but women are better at keeping what they have, if results from Deasy et al. (page 73) are any indication. The group shows that female muscle stem cells are better than their male counterparts at regenerating lost muscle.

The authors were led into the realm of muscle and sex when they realized that they were relying heavily on cell lines derived from female mice to study muscle regeneration. Most of the male lines, by contrast, were stuck away in the freezer. They supposed that the female ones were more popular because they were working better.

The group now shows that female muscle stem cells are indeed better at regenerating diseased muscle in a mouse model. While the male cells proliferated briefly and abruptly differentiated...