The gender bias of science makes women sick

Science has not treated men and women equally. Often, with the excuse that women's hormonal cycle could distort results, clinical trials have been conducted only on men for convenience and to erroneously assume that the bodies' response was the same in both men and women. The result is that women are generally underdiagnosed and that on many occasions they receive treatment later – if they receive it –, have less access to care, and suffer more pain because their symptoms are not taken into account, because they do not fit with what men are said to feel. As Gemma Parramon, head of liaison psychiatry at Vall d'Hebron Hospital and author of the book Será por las hormonas,there are increasingly more studies that demonstrate, in different contexts, that women wait longer on public healthcare waiting lists or that there are more diagnostic delays even in diseases where it is fundamental to detect the condition in time.

A flagrant case, for example, is that of heart attacks, which have different symptoms depending on the sex, which means that women take longer to go to the doctor, and in some cases this limits their survival. But it happens in many other diseases that are not part of those considered specifically feminine because they are linked to reproduction. However, we are no longer in the time when everything was fixed by saying that women were hysterical, although this prejudice is maintained somewhat in some cases and it is significant that they receive more diagnoses of depression or anxiety, without taking into account that there may be other causes that are not directly explored.

However, perhaps because there are more and more female scientists and doctors, current research is focusing precisely on recovering lost time, and new studies are emerging that highlight the differences between men and women in relation to certain diseases. It is known, for example, that two out of every three patients with Alzheimer's are women, but until recently sex was not considered an important variable in the research of this cognitive disease. This year, however, and in some cases thanks to research led by Catalonia or with Catalan presence, more clinical trials are being conducted that include both men and women and it is being shown that the disease does not behave the same and that perhaps factors such as pregnancy or menopause may play a role, along with other more contextual or epigenetic elements.

It is fundamental to eliminate gender bias in research, in clinical trials, and, in general, in medicine. We have an enormous gap in studies that take differences into account, and it will take years to have certainties and be able to apply research results in clinical practice. The most important thing is that awareness of this fact is growing, which is not a feminist claim but a claim for science in its broadest sense. We cannot ignore what happens to half of the world's population, and we must put an end to considering that the standard is solely what happens to men. More studies, more research, and a change in mentality in healthcare that takes this into account are needed.