Women make up 50% of the population and while we have made great strides in equality and closing the gender pay gap, there is still one area that as women we are massively underrepresented and that is health.
For centuries the focus and research have always been on the male body and after years of campaigning in 1993, the FDA and the NIH made it mandatory to include women in clinical trials. Up until this point it was deemed too risky to include women in medical research and preclinical trials because their hormones might interfere with the results. This has since been proven incorrect and in fact, they have now found that women have more stable results than men according to a study Current Biology.
Women face a considerable historical deficit in medical research, as it’s only in the last two decades that their health issues have begun to gain focused attention. This is a stark contrast to the centuries of accumulated data on men, which forms the foundation of countless medical texts and informs most of the medical knowledge. As a result, much of our existing medical literature is predicated on male-centric findings, presenting a significant challenge in closing the gender gap in health research.
Whilst including women in clinical trials did change it took until 2014 for the NIH to begin to acknowledge the problem of male bias in preclinical trials, and until 2016 for it to mandate that any research money it granted must include female animals.
For over 50 years, researchers have preferentially used male mice in experiments, in part due to concern that the hormone cycle in females would cause behavioural variation that could negatively impact results. Over time, this practice has resulted in a poorer understanding of the female brain, likely contributing to the misdiagnosis of mental and neurological conditions in women, as well as the development of drugs that have more side effects for women.
Now, a new study led by Dana Levy a research fellow in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) who looked at the behaviour of male and female mice, has not only turned the long-held, sexist assumption on its head but has demonstrated the opposite—male mice are the ones that exhibit excessive behavioural variation that can harm research results.
“I think this is really powerful evidence that if you’re studying naturalistic, spontaneous exploratory behaviour, you should include both sexes in your experiments. It leads to the argument that in this setting—if you can only pick one sex to work on—you should actually be working on females,” said Sandeep Robert Datta, professor of neurobiology at HMS, who co-led the study.
It may also surprise you to know that it was only in 2023 that the manufacturers of sanitary products decided to stop testing their products with water!!! Yes, you read that correctly! In all the years that these products have been on the store shelves they have never been tested on the liquid they were designed to absorb! No wonder if like me, you found they often did not do the job you thought they were designed to do. Which in turn made you think that it was a YOU problem and not a product design/testing problem.
This bias continues today, and a series of papers published in the Lancet about menopause and that Women should learn to accept and embrace the changes they face with menopause. The article sadly showed the misogyny that women face daily when it comes to their health. A clear example of this is when you take a paragraph from the article and replace the words Menopause with Erectile Dysfunction and Women with Men, you get a very different outcome and one I would guess that no man would willingly choose if it could be cured with a simple prescription.
See what you think…
Adapted paragraph; Men with erectile Dysfunction can be strong, healthy, and happy—as highlighted by the selection of inspirational images of older men that accompany the Series. Age related erectile dysfunction can also be a time for men to reassess their identities, to embrace this next phase in their lives and the freedom from unwanted erection and desire, and to challenge negative perceptions of older men, which are prevalent in some societies. We need to send a realistic, balanced message to men and to society: testosterone decline, and erectile dysfunction does not herald the start of a period of decay and decline but is a developmental life stage that can be negotiated successfully with access to evidence-based information as well as appropriate social and medical support. Men deserve nothing less.
Original paragraph; Menopausal women can be strong, healthy, and happy—as highlighted by the selection of inspirational images of older women that accompany the Series. Menopause can also be a time for women to reassess their identities, to embrace this next phase in their lives and the freedom from menstruation and menstrual pain, and to challenge negative perceptions of older women, which are prevalent in some societies. We need to send a realistic, balanced message to women and to society: menopause does not herald the start of a period of decay and decline but is a developmental life stage that can be negotiated successfully with access to evidence-based information as well as appropriate social and medical support. Women deserve nothing less. The full article can be found here…
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00462-8/fulltext
Women today more than ever need to be aware of how their health can be treated differently to men and know that they have the power to take back control of their health, as a Women’s wellness and success coach, I work closely with women to help them navigate the complicated medical path and have the confidence to challenge health professionals and to be seen, heard and taken seriously when it comes to their health. Because Women deserve to be treated the same as men when it comes to their health. If you are struggling with navigating a health issue and would like to know more about how you can take back control feel free to email or message me.