More medicine
An October 10th article in the UK's Daily Mail begins with the statement "We all know men and women speak a different language when it comes to love and housework, but when we're ill, doctors treat us the same." While this point is arguable, the article's point about women being treated as slightly smaller men is valid. As previously noted in Difference Blog, women have not been included in many medical studies until recently, meaning that the data on women's health (in comparison to men's) is sparse. The Daily Mail article focuses on two points of inquiry: gender-activated genes and differential symptoms.
Vawter et al (2004) examined how brain development can be affected by the supression of certain genes -- leading to gender differences which are not specifically on the sex chromosomes. Vawter et al. suggest that this may be related to gender differences in some types of psychological disorders. Nature (2006) profiled mouse genome research about gender-activated genes in July. Researchers at the University of California found that 70% of genes in the liver, where drugs are processed, are expressed differently between men and women.
These differences may, at least partially, explain the differences in symptoms experienced by men and women. McSweeney et al (2004) discusses some of the differences in early-warning symptoms for acute myocardial infarction (AMI, i.e. a heart attack) between men and women. Only 29.7% of the women they surveyed, who had suffered AMIs, had experience chest pain, "a hallmark symptom in men." Patel et al's meta-analysis (2005) did show chest pain as the most common symptom in both men and women (although it was experience by a greater percentage of men), but found other patterns in women's symptoms, such as nausea/vomiting, and joint/back pain.
One of the side effects of the testosterone I take is that it raises my "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and lowers my "good" (HDL) cholesterol. This worries my doctors more than it does me, but I'm interested in one point mentioned in the Daily Mail article that I didn't get a chance to research, yet. Apparently, women benefit more from raising HDL cholesterol, whereas men benefit from loweing LDL cholesterol. Guess which one statins (cholesterol drugs) affect? If you guessed "the one that benefits women," you haven't been listening. Personally, I have no idea which half of the equation would be more likely to benefit me, but I'm willing to guess that working on both halves wouldn't hurt me any.
Vawter et al (2004) examined how brain development can be affected by the supression of certain genes -- leading to gender differences which are not specifically on the sex chromosomes. Vawter et al. suggest that this may be related to gender differences in some types of psychological disorders. Nature (2006) profiled mouse genome research about gender-activated genes in July. Researchers at the University of California found that 70% of genes in the liver, where drugs are processed, are expressed differently between men and women.
These differences may, at least partially, explain the differences in symptoms experienced by men and women. McSweeney et al (2004) discusses some of the differences in early-warning symptoms for acute myocardial infarction (AMI, i.e. a heart attack) between men and women. Only 29.7% of the women they surveyed, who had suffered AMIs, had experience chest pain, "a hallmark symptom in men." Patel et al's meta-analysis (2005) did show chest pain as the most common symptom in both men and women (although it was experience by a greater percentage of men), but found other patterns in women's symptoms, such as nausea/vomiting, and joint/back pain.
One of the side effects of the testosterone I take is that it raises my "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and lowers my "good" (HDL) cholesterol. This worries my doctors more than it does me, but I'm interested in one point mentioned in the Daily Mail article that I didn't get a chance to research, yet. Apparently, women benefit more from raising HDL cholesterol, whereas men benefit from loweing LDL cholesterol. Guess which one statins (cholesterol drugs) affect? If you guessed "the one that benefits women," you haven't been listening. Personally, I have no idea which half of the equation would be more likely to benefit me, but I'm willing to guess that working on both halves wouldn't hurt me any.