Do Women Have Worse Allergies Than Men?

Take a closer look at those numbers, however, and one thing becomes clear: Allergies affect men and women differently.

Here’s what we know about why this happens.

There are marked differences in allergy rates among the sexes before and after the teenage years.

Indeed, when it comes to any allergic condition there is data for, adult women have higher rates than adult men, Dr. Locke says. It isn't known for sure what causes these differences, he says. But because the shift in rates appears after puberty, hormones seem to play a significant role.

This difference may potentially explain how males and females respond to allergens as they grow up, he says. And it could also at least partly explain why the hormone fluctuations that occur throughout a woman's life may affect allergy symptoms.

Research shows that female sex hormones may cause allergic reactions to be more common in women than men, says Payel Gupta, MD, a board-certified allergist-immunologist with Ease Allergy Clinic in Brooklyn and spokesperson for the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

Testosterone, on the other hand, helps protect against severe reactions, according to Dr. Gupta. "It does this by decreasing the amount of allergic-reaction-causing chemicals like histamine that are present in one type of allergy cell called a mast cell,” Gupta says. “Because these mast cells are less loaded up, the allergic reaction that follows is not as strong."

"However, because women tend to have more severe allergies on average, their symptoms can sometimes be harder to control," she says. "This might make it seem like the medicines aren't working as well for women, but it's really just that more severe disease is more difficult to treat in general, not that the medicine itself is less effective."

For this reason, programs such as the Oregon Clinic's Asthma in Women Program aim to provide specialized care to women with allergic conditions. Rather than following standard gender-neutral guidance, these programs take into account how factors like pregnancy and the fluctuating menstrual cycle impact allergies and asthma when providing care.

Research in this area has historically been lacking, but Gupta is hopeful that a clearer picture will emerge of how to better treat women's allergy symptoms in the future. "It is an important topic and has been ignored for a long time," she says.

• Allergies affect men and women differently, with boys having higher rates of all allergic conditions — such as asthma, eczema, and seasonal and food allergies — before puberty, and women experiencing more allergic conditions as adults.
• Researchers believe that the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone play a role in these differences, which may explain why some women experience allergies differently during periods of hormone fluctuation, such as menstruation, pregnancy, and perimenopause.
• Women are also prone to more frequent allergic reactions than men.
• While current treatment guidelines don't differ by sex, more research may help us better understand how best to treat allergies in women versus men.