A person's sex does matter, report finds

[Guest guest]

A person's sex does matter, report finds

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Apr 25 (Reuters) - Medical researchers ought to devote more time and

energy to looking into the

differences between men and women, a panel of experts said on Tuesday in a

report that delivers perhaps the

understatement of the year: " Sex does matter. "

The Institute of Medicine, which advises the US government on health policy,

issued a report saying that

differences between the sexes could be seen in the prevalence and severity of a

wide range of illnesses and medical

conditions.

Those variations must be weighed when designing and analyzing biomedical and

health-related research in all fields,

a 16-member panel of experts assembled by the institute said in its report.

" Over the past decade new discoveries in basic human biology have made it

increasingly apparent that many normal

physiological functions--and in many cases, pathological functions--are

influenced either directly or indirectly by

sex-based differences in biology, " the report said.

" Sex does matter, " Lou Pardue of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

who headed the panel, said in the

preface to the report. " It matters in ways that we did not expect. Undoubtedly

it also matters in ways that we have

not begun to imagine. "

The report said that basic genetic and physiological differences, in combination

with environmental factors, result

in behavioral and cognitive differences between boys and girls and men and

women. Physiological differences in the

brain, sex-typed behavior and gender identity and sex differences in cognitive

ability should be studied at all

points in the life span, the experts recommended.

Until recently, medical researchers have done little to ensure that women

receive the same representation as men in

critical medical studies. The report said future studies should be designed to

allow analysis of data by sex.

DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF ILLNESS

The panel of experts pointed out that males and females have different patterns

of illness, live different life

spans and respond differently to various medicines. They also said men and women

differ in their metabolism and how

they store energy. Understanding those sex-based differences is important in

developing new approaches to disease

prevention, diagnosis and treatment, the panel said.

" While it is anatomically obvious why only males develop prostate cancer and

only females get ovarian cancer, it is

not at all obvious why, for example, females are more likely than males to

recover language ability after suffering

a left-hemisphere stroke or why females have a far greater risk than males of

developing life-threatening

ventricular arrhythmias in response to a variety of potassium channel-blocking

drugs, " the report said.

Women's groups have criticized the historical male-oriented approach to medical

fact-finding.

" Now the challenge is to make sure that mechanisms are put in place to ensure

better understanding of the basic

differences between the sexes and that these differences become translated into

clinical practices, " said Phyllis

Greenberger, president of the Washington-based Society for Women's Health

Research. " Such measures will benefit

both women and men. "

The report, which was 16 months in the making, was requested by several federal

agencies as well as corporate and

private groups. The Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of

Sciences, is a private, nonprofit

research organization.