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Conference examines differences in male, female responses to disease
Friday, October 19, 2001 By Anita Srikameswaran, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A 45-year-old man feels pressure in his chest and pain radiate down his left arm. A 65-year-old woman complains of indigestion.
Both patients could be having a heart attack.
The chance to explore the differences between men and women has attracted about 150 researchers from around the world to an American Physiological Society meeting that began yesterday at the Westin Convention Center Hotel Downtown. The meeting concludes tomorrow.
"There's lots of evidence that diseases do present differently in men and women and respond to treatment in a different way," said Dr. Virginia Miller, director of the Office of Women's Health at the Mayo Clinic and a meeting organizer.
For example, women tend to get cardiovascular disease at an older age than men, after menopause, and they may not experience the symptoms typically associated with the disease. But women are more likely than men to have autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and lupus.
"In order to improve the health of the nation, we need to pay attention to the differences between men and women," Miller said.
In the past, human research has been conducted that permitted all participants to be male. Now, women, and minorities, must be included when appropriate.
There are not only hormonal differences between the sexes, but also genetic ones that could play a big role in the development of disease and treatment response. Information from the human genome project could provide some enlightenment.
"There's an issue of what genes are present, and a second is, are there variations within those genes?" Miller said.
Variations could lead to the manufacture of different body proteins and affect disease processes.
Also, women have two X, or female, chromosomes, but men have one X and one Y, or male, chromosome.
Those sex chromosomes could influence the activity of genes on the other so-called somatic chromosomes.
"This is a new science. It's evolved over the last 10 years," Miller said of sex-based biology. "The next couple of years will be very exciting when we understand more about how genes regulate who we are and how we function [physiologically]."
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