Women not only achieve a higher age, their brain also ages more slowly than that of men.
Photo: Imago/Xinhua
Women live in the world’s average for 4.5 years longer than men, but not necessarily with better health. The average earth resident spent nine years in a bad state of health – compared to men, a 25 percent longer. Physical complaints of women are not taken seriously or the patients are encouraged to endure the pain. Little research has been carried out on women -specific diseases such as endometriosis. And even know about the female anatomy – such as the distinction between vagina, vulva and clitoris – is still not sufficiently conveyed. In the case of diseases that can affect all genders, diagnosis, treatment and development of new medication are often based on male patients or subjects.
“It is now generally recognized that the insufficient inclusion and consideration of women in medical research have led to health inequalities, from preclinical studies on cells and animals to clinical studies on humans,” writes a team of authors around Bronwyn Graham, Professor of Psychology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, in a special edition of the specialist journals »Scientific Reports «on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
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A now quite known example of gender differences is that women are less likely to suffer heart attacks than men, but die significantly more often because they are not recognized and treated in good time. Because the symptoms of an infarct are often completely different, and not those that are generally conscious as “typical”. Both physical aspects and different socialization in dealing with diseases are likely to play a role.
However, women and people with various gender identities alone are not enough to take into account. Because women undermine stronger hormonal changes in the course of their lives that have an impact on their health. The risk of cardiovascular diseases usually only increases after menopause.
The brain can also be subject to changes with the menopause. Current studies that are now presented “Scientific Reports” deal with the connection between menopause or hormone therapy and the accumulation of dew proteins in the brain that is associated with Alzheimer’s. Researchers at the University of California have again found that the female brain of women ages less than the male under normal circumstances. “In our previous studies, we have found that if we add male mice to a second X chromosome, we improves your cognition, and if we remove it in female mice, your cognition deteriorates in old age,” said the neurobiologist Dubal. Understanding what women do here can also contribute to better treatment of both sexes.