Table 1.

Endocrine interventions and immunity

Intervention	Aim	(Side-)effect on immunity	References
Oral contraceptives	Prevent ovulation	Increased risk for genital tract infections No effect on risk for MS, RA, SLE	Fichorova et al. (2015), Mohllajee et al. (2006), Murphy et al. (2014), and Straub (2007)
In vitro fertilization	Induce ovulation, maintain early pregnancy	Unknown	Huang and Rosenwaks (2012) and Yanushpolsky (2015)
Estrogen replacement therapy	Alleviate peri- and postmenopausal symptoms	Partial restoration of immunological function seen during reproductive age Increased symptoms of SLE	Holroyd and Edwards (2009), Giefing-Kroll et al. (2015), and Straub (2007)
Aromatase inhibitors	Deprive ER+ breast cancer from estrogens	Clinical signs of RA (e.g., joint pain)	Zhang et al. (2010)
Androgen replacement therapy	Reduction of inflammation in hypogonadism	Suppression of cellular and humoral immune responses	Cutolo et al. (2002), Kocar et al. (2000), Musabak et al. (2003), Ackerman (2006), Malkin et al. (2004), and Fijak et al. (2011)
CRH antagonists	Reduction of excessive glucocorticoid release	Reduction of downstream immune-suppression	Elenkov et al. (1999) and Zoumakis et al. (2006)

MS, multiple sclerosis; ER; estrogen receptor; RA; rheumatoid arthritis; SLE, systemic lupus erythematosus; CRH, corticotropin-releasing hormone.