Excluding Women From Medical Studies Hinders Progress, Widens Gender Gap.

2001 FEB 22 - (NewsRx.com) -- The exclusion of women from the majority of clinical studies has created gaps in medical knowledge about the effects of disease and treatment of women.

The concept of gender-based biology applies to all areas of health care, said Nada L. Stotland, MD, MPH, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. Stotland authored a perspective in the February 2001 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry that highlights two studies, both of which address the differential effects of alcohol abuse on the brains of women and men.

A key problem in providing women with the medical attention they require is that treatments for many diseases are not tested on women at all, which results in a further widening of the gender knowledge gap, Stotland said. "It's not only a question of fairness. By looking at gender differences, you can learn a lot about how diseases work," she said in the perspective, titled "Gender-based biology."

Alcoholic women in their thirties show clear evidence of brain shrinkage, compared with nonalcoholic women. Brain shrinkage in alcoholic men is present, yet not as severe, wrote Daniel W. Hommer, MD, et al. in one of the studies ("Evidence for a gender-related effect of alcoholism on brain volumes," Amer Jour Psych, February 2001, p. 198).

Hommer et al. said the gender-related effect on brain shrinkage is greater in alcoholism than in other diseases and psychiatric disorders.

"I believe ...