Gender Bias Risks Women’s Health
Imagine describing these symptoms to your doctor: Your heart pounds, your chest hurts and you feel a sense of impending doom.
If you’re a woman, your doctor may quickly decide it’s all in your head. If you’re a man, your doctor is more likely to examine your heart.
Dr. Tim Lessmeier of Spokane, along with his colleagues in Detroit, recently published a study which showed exactly that. They studied patients with a heart rhythm disorder called paraoxysmal supraventricular tachycardia.
In the study, 32 percent of the men - but more than 60 percent of the women - had been previously misdiagnosed with panic disorder.
One of the study participants, a 38-year-old Detroit woman named Cindy Vella, underwent treatment that changed her life. She’s no longer housebound; she’s working and Rollerblading with her kids.
Lessmeier’s research has implications that extend far beyond the lives of those with heart rhythm disorders. It points out the importance of conducting medical research that seriously examines the differences between men’s and women’s health.
Traditionally, standard medical research has been conducted on white men. That means doctors may lack the information to properly diagnose women’s diseases, and fail to order the right tests.
That also means women may not take health risks seriously. They seldom realize they’re five times more likely to die of heart attack than breast cancer.
Researchers must design studies that examine disease in a diverse population. African-Americans, for example, respond differently to certain high blood pressure treatments than do white males.
New studies like Lessmeier’s are changing the way we examine the health of all Americans. At Spokane’s Heart Institute, 22 clinical trials are under way that include a balanced cross-section of Spokane’s population.
The National Institutes of Health has embarked on a 15-year, $628 million research project to discover ways to prevent heart disease, breast and colon cancer and osteoporosis in older women. These studies, which will involve 164,500 women, will be one of the most definitive clinical trials of women’s health ever attempted.
The results won’t be available until the next millennium, but women’s health can be improved with one simple social and cultural shift.
We can listen to women, and take the concerns they voice to heart.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jamie Tobias Neely For the editorial board