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Women DON'T deserve more funding in health
just because they're women.
Women DON'T deserve more funding in health
just because they're women.
In terms of funding and
treatment in the developed world, women are being looked after just as much, if
not, more than men.
But that doesn't mean we ignore the
obvious. Men and women are different, and have different bodies, which work
differently.
Treating them as separate in terms of
treatment and research only makes sense.
But we shouldn't do this just because
they're women.
In this video, Pauline Johnson lays out her "mission" to figure out "why these sex differences occur and use that knowledge to improve the health of women."
We should recognise genders in medicine because it will only lead to better treatments for everyone.
In this video, Pauline Johnson lays out her "mission" to figure out "why these sex differences occur and use that knowledge to improve the health of women."
We should recognise genders in medicine because it will only lead to better treatments for everyone.
Pauline Johnson suggests that when looking at health, women should be
looked after more.
She frames the whole speech is to make
it an issue of women's health and appeals to a feministic agenda that way. She
asserts that women should get treated differently to men, and that they deserve
a larger chunk of the pot when it comes to medical research and treatments.
Had she framed this argument
differently, i.e. scientifically, she would have got her point across to more
people, and made her talk more convincing, rather than alienating a large chunk
of her audience.
(The like to dislike ratio at the time I wrote this was about 3:2 - very low for this channel)
Because acknowledging the difference in
gender in clinical settings and in drug trials would lead to better treatments
for women AND men - it would help more people stay healthy. Period (no pun intended).
It's important to note that the data she presents, as it is with any opinion piece, can be misleading. She's either doing it purposefully to illustrate and
convince her audience or she's being blinded by her feministic stand on health.
For example, she uses a statistic that "66%
of mice brain studies were on male mice or those whose gender were unspecified"
and suggests that this means that women are being neglected in research.
This statement is flawed as we don't
know how many studies actually specify gender. All we know is that 34% are
specified as female in gender. It's very possible that a lower percentage were
specified as male.
So take some of what she says with a
grain of salt.
However, she makes some vital points on the healthcare for ALL people. There
ARE huge differences between men and women. Not so much in the major, non
sexual organ tissues/cells like the heart and lungs as she suggests when she
says all cells are different, but in the hormones that run around and affect
the functioning of the normal and diseased body (which are different in men and
women).
Her idea that we treat and research differently between genders is very valid
on heart healthcare.
Men comprise about 60% of heart
patients, but women have a worse prognosis. Is it because they're being
neglected? Possibly, but it's not because only men are being studied, as she
suggests, but because in clinical trials and hospital situations, GENDER IS NOT
ALWAYS ACKNOWLEDGED or taken into account when analysing data.
There is a huge difference in the two.
Over the last few decades, researchers
and doctors have begun to see the importance of gender in hospitals.
In a study done on this issue - heart
health, linked below - it was found that there is a trend in men of getting
higher levels of LDL cholesterol (the bad version of cholesterol) in the third
and fourth decades. This suggest there may be some physical or social aspects
that aren't considered by doctors or in trials in the case of men, and that
these should be addressed more in patients in that category.
Eventually though, in the 5th decade,
women suffer from higher proportions of LDL:HDL due to the post menopause
period, as HDL (the good form of cholesterol) levels drop, meaning there is a
higher percentage of LDLs left in the body. That same study suggests using HDL
levels (or proportion of HDL:LDL) and the amount of fat circulating in the
blood as a more accurate form of diagnosis in women [1].
There you can see that acknowledging
differences in men and women when doing and analysing medical trials helps the
treatment outcomes of BOTH WOMEN AND MEN.
And noting the differences will only
lead to more research being done more efficiently which can help EVERYONE.
Not just women as Pauline Johnson suggests.
Not just women as Pauline Johnson suggests.
You may see that in the case of heart health, this study alone shows the necessity to invest more and do more
studies on the diet/drinking/smoking patterns (and other risk
factors of heart disease) in 30s - 40 year old men, and more should be done on
the effects of menopause on heart health for women.
Thus
studying these differences, and noting gender in clinical trials IS a completely
sound suggestion that should be taken on board.
In the case of depression, Johnson makes a point that 70% of people diagnosed
with depression are female. But on studies of symptoms done on 5600 people (60%
of those tested were female by the way), men and women were shown to have near
equal rates of depression symptoms [2].
This suggests that men don't seek help
for cases like this, and are under-diagnosed more than that women are
neglected.
HOWEVER, despite this, Johnson's
suggestion that women be studied differently to men, due to their differing
brain functioning, is a very good idea as the TREATMENT of this diagnosis can
be very different.
Looking forward on how this data can
help improve the medical system, it becomes clear that more funding needs to be
done on making men more aware or willing to come out and seek help for
depression, and more funding needs to be diverted on the effects of the mood
centre (and hormones associated with that section) of the brain in women in
terms of treatment.
Again,
acknowledging the difference in genders will help improve treatment and
health research for men AND women.
I haven't done too much endocrinology yet in med school, so I don't know for
sure what the differences between male and women are exactly (other than the
obvious that I've discovered on my own =P), but the idea that we acknowledge
these differences when we research, trial and treat is VERY GOOD and will only
end up saving more lives..
And her suggestion that we can make a change by asking our doctors if there is
a difference in treatments for men and women is also excellent. Because
guess what, this video made me look up the differences in these diseases alone,
and has made me (and hopefully the med students who read my posts), as a future
doctor and concerned member of society, aware of this difference which hasn't
been considered as much in health to date.
Had she should have framed it as an issue of science and medicine rather than one of gender inequality, more people would be inclined to do that research too.
By the way - this will be the start of a new series - Q&A.
I got messaged this video on FaceBook and asked for a comment on it, and this (with some reworking and slight editing) was my answer.
This "series", if you will, is not going to be as well worded and written as carefully as my other more inspiring posts, but I'll try and keep it good.
Comment or message me anything you find interesting in terms of my treatment, how I view life after cancer after cancer or on interesting things you may have seen on the news or the internet, and I'll try and respond as soon as possible.
You can find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musingsofamedstudentpatient
Blogger (here of course)
Sources:
It should be noted that there are huge inequalities in women's health in the developing world for political and social reasons - not for lack of research or investment in treatment as she suggested.
And also - this obviously doesn't concern reproductive health, which is completely different...
well... for most people that is.
