ArticleNature communications2012
Evidence for the stress-linked immunocompetence handicap hypothesis in humans.
Article in Nature communications, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 203 citations in OpenAlex.
- Measuring sexual dimorphism in human faces.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- Facial Appearance and Markers of Cardiometabolic Risk in Healthy Adult Men.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Ecological immunology: do sexual attraction and immunity trade-off through a desaturase?Insect science · 2025Article
- Sexual Signaling and Sociosexual Behaviors in Relation to Rank, Parasites, Hormones, and Age in Male Vervet Monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) in Uganda.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Do lifestyle and hormonal variables explain links between health and facial attractiveness?Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Association between sex hormones and anti-S/RBD antibody responses to COVID-19 vaccines in healthcare workers.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2023Article
- Women's Mating Strategies and Mate Value Are Associated with Viewing Time to Facial Masculinity.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- Facial Attractiveness, but not Facial Masculinity, is Used as a Cue to Paternal Involvement in Fathers.Adaptive human behavior and physiology · 2023Article
- Longitudinal changes in disgust sensitivity during pregnancy and the early postpartum period, and the role of recent health problems.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- The role of hormones in attraction and visual attention to facial masculinity.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Attractive and healthy-looking male faces do not show higher immunoreactivity.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- More than just a pretty face? The relationship between immune function and perceived facial attractiveness.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Facial and body sexual dimorphism are not interconnected in the Maasai.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2022Article
- ArePeerJ · 2022Article
- How and why patterns of sexual dimorphism in human faces vary across the world.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Low fundamental and formant frequencies predict fighting ability among male mixed martial arts fighters.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Differential effects of resource scarcity and pathogen prevalence on heterosexual women's facial masculinity preferences.Evolutionary human sciences · 2021Article
- Facial attractiveness and preference of sexual dimorphism: A comparison across five populations.Evolutionary human sciences · 2021Article
- Linking human male vocal parameters to perceptions, body morphology, strength and hormonal profiles in contexts of sexual selection.Scientific reports · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Secondary sexual traits that develop under the action of testosterone, such as masculine human male facial characteristics, have been proposed to signal the strength of the immune system due to the sex hormone's immunosuppressive action. Recent work has suggested that glucocorticoid stress hormones may also influence expression of such sexual signals due to their effects on immune function. Precise roles, however, remain unclear. Here we show positive relationships between testosterone, facial attractiveness and immune function (antibody response to a hepatitis B vaccine) in human males, and present some preliminary evidence that these relationships are moderated by naturally co-occurring cortisol (a glucocorticoid stress hormone involved in the fight-or-flight response). We conclude that our results provide support for a role of glucocorticoids in hormonally mediated sexual selection.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.