Sex. Women, men and difference: an epilogue.
The secrets of women’s healthy ageing – Sex. Women, men and difference: an epilogue.
The author included this chapter to highlight the fact that it’s only since the turn of the 21st century that medical professionals have really begun to focus on the effects of sex (i.e. biological sex – X & Y chromosomes) on health, the development of disease and the effectiveness of medical and lifestyle therapies. We hope that by now doing so, it will be one of the biggest influences on improving human health this coming century. At last including 50% of the world’s population.
The reasons for the historical exclusion of women and non-white minorities is still up for debate. This chapter provides raw evidence and invites the reader to read on to ‘enter the debate’. By all means, let me know if you want a copy of these pages, or the book (in time, it’s already been promised to a couple of people), but I’ll pop a few of the more salient points here…
The omission of women from clinical trials means we’re decades behind in research. Which matters when you consider that men and women metabolise drugs differently, so dose, frequency and response to meds will vary significantly between men and women. The author says that of the small percentage of (6-7%) of new drug applications that do perform a sex analysis, they show at least a 40% difference in the body’s handling of the drug between men and women. Even for meds with “known female complications (e.g. lisinopril which is associated with fatal renal impairment and death), less than half (43%) of trials including this type of medication examine sex differences.”
We’ll look at specific drugs and the distances in how they affect us in the next post!
