That is progress, to be sure. But it has become increasingly clear that to improve medicine for both men and women, more also needs to be done to study differences between the sexes. For too long, the research community has ignored the fact that being male or female encompasses far more than reproductive systems and hormones. Sexually determined characteristics can be found all the way down to the cellular level, and they have important implications that influence how long we live, how we are affected by disease and medication, and even how our brains function.
I recently chaired a panel of the Institute of Medicine that examined the scientific literature on how molecular and biological differences between the sexes affect health. We concluded that it would benefit everyone--men and women alike--if biomedical researchers started paying more attention to these differences. Doing so could identify new ways to promote good health ...
