How a woman's gender affects her health By Betty Russell, Pure
Matters Health can be confusing, regardless of gender. But women
have an added disadvantage. In the past, medicine was dominated
by a male point of view. And early medical research focused on
-- you guessed it -- men. "Now there's a growing understanding
that there are significant gender differences in health care,"
says Wendy Klein, M.D., an internal medicine and women's health
specialist. A report by the Institute of Medicine emphasized
that researchers needed to know the differences in biology
between men and women, with the aim of improving medical
practice and therapies. Differences between men and women exist
at the system, organ, tissue, cellular and sub-cellular level,
according to the Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR). Men
and women also differ in their response to medications. Some
differences between men and women are obvious. But others go
beyond basic anatomy. Here are some ways your health may vary
from that of the men in yo