Lack of medical research on women a problem
By Natalie Schreyer, Mother Jones.
Scientific research isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. And when it comes to how doctors treat the sick, the differences between patients can be a matter of life and death.
On the latest episode of the “Inquiring Minds” podcast, Indre Viskontas speaks with Marek Glezerman, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, about the differences between men and women when it comes to health and medicine. Those differences aren’t always well understood by doctors, but they are extremely important. They exist in the disease symptoms we experience, the way our bodies regulate temperature, and even how we process pain.
These differences can have profound consequences. As Glezerman explains, some serious medical conditions, such as heart attacks, have symptoms that present differently in men and women. A woman, for example, may not show symptoms of a heart attack as quickly as a man. Her pain may radiate to the neck or the face, while in men pain often spreads to the left side of the body. According to Glezerman, one in five women who arrive at the emergency room with these symptoms is likely to be misdiagnosed. And a misdiagnosis can be fatal.
