by Gendro | Oct 25, 2023 | Media, Podcast
25 October 2023
Throughout almost all of medical history, it was assumed that the average white male response to drug trials could be extrapolated to all potential recipients. But when we look at the poorer health outcomes for women and minorities, could the underlying assumptions in medical research be a contributing factor? If so, what is being done to solve them? Diana Torgersen, Shirin Heidari, and Deana Mohr were invited to share their thoughts on these questions.
Listen here: Life Sciences: Sex and Gender in Medical Research
by Gendro | Jan 12, 2022 | Podcast
12 January 2022
The podcast discusses the often overlooked issue of gender representation in medical research, particularly focusing on HIV trials and pharmacological studies. Dr. Heidari, founding president of GENDRO, and her team conducted a systematic review revealing a significant gender disparity in HIV research trials, where only 19% of participants were women despite them constituting more than 50% of HIV cases. The conversation delves into the history of gender inclusion mandates, such as the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 and subsequent mandates for basic science research, highlighting the importance of including both sexes from the outset to avoid overlooking physiological sex-based differences that could emerge later in clinical trials.
Despite progress, adherence to guidelines ensuring gender inclusion remains inconsistent, and there is a gap between simply including men and women in studies and conducting appropriate gender-specific analyses. The podcast emphasizes the necessity of breaking down study results by gender and even calculating the optimal gender distribution in study designs to ensure robust findings. Additionally, the discussion touches on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, illustrating how drugs can affect male and female bodies differently, with examples like marijuana pharmacokinetics showing that women require less marijuana to experience the same effects, which could be obscured by higher dropout rates among women in previous studies. The conversation underscores the critical need for considering gender differences in medical research to ensure equitable and effective healthcare outcomes.
Listen to the podcast part1 and part2.
