Seeking Solutions With Suzanne

Because men and women can be affected by the same illness in different ways, it is sometimes necessary to have different courses of treatment as well. 2/3 of medications are tested on male subjects, so it can be difficult for physicians to predict how a women’s body will react to a medication.
A woman that is experiencing a heart attack may just feel it is indigestion. 20% of women will experience pain in the upper abdomen and back, accompanied by nausea. The pain is more intense for men, and will feel more like a “crushing” pain.
Despite many other differences, there are certain vitamins that men and women should be taking. 1,000 mgm of Vitamin C, and 400 units of Vitamin A and E are appropriate doses for both sexes to take daily to help in preventing illness and disease.

Gender Specific Medicine

at 11:55AM, 1:55PM, and 3:55PM

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, right? Although that phrase usually refers to the emotional differences between men and women in relationships, the same theory can apply when it comes to our biological make-up. Recently, medical professionals are concluding that diagnosis and treatment of illness varies greatly between the sexes. Suzanne spoke to gender medicine pioneer, Dr. Marianne Legato, to get more insight into “gender-specific medicine.” Gender-specific medicine is the science of how normal function and the experience of the same diseases differs between men and women. It is a fairly new discovery, as the discipline is only thirteen years old.

Is it Hormonal?
Although gender differences are not all hormone related, the difference in hormones between men and women definitely factors into illness and symptoms. A good example of this is abnormal heart rhythms, and the instances in which they can occur. Women report many abnormal heart rhythms, or “murmurs”, during the premenstrual period. It has been found that heart activity, and even a woman’s immune system, changes as a result of hormone levels.

What Are Some Differences?
The biological differences between men and women are amazing…from the makeup of our saliva, to the way food is processed. Here are a few other surprising differences:

For reasons doctors are still researching, men are more susceptible to skin cancer than women. They are also less likely to survive it.
Unprotected sex is riskier for women than it is for men. A California study revealed that women are actually 9 times more likely than men to contract HIV.
Women’s bodies react to pain killers differently than men’s, and absorb the chemicals more thoroughly. This could mean that after a root canal, if a man and women are both given Motrin, the women may get more relief from her discomfort than the man.
Due to changes in the brain, the addiction to nicotine for women is stronger than a man’s, thus making it more difficult to quit smoking.

By ignoring gender, health care professionals have made grave mistakes concerning diagnosis and treatment in the past. Because her symptoms are less severe, a women complaining of chest pain may have be treated for heartburn before going through the proper cardiac tests that could indicate a heart attack. Likewise, because the instance of women having osteoporosis is significantly greater in women than in men, a man may be misdiagnosed as having arthritis, instead. But with new studies and findings about biological gender differences, doctors are making important strides in eliminating these problems and making certain that everyone receives the treatment that works best for them.