THE ESSENTIAL
- Up to 5% of all hospital admissions are the result of adverse drug reactions.
- According to a 2001 study, women have a 1.5 to 1.7 times higher risk of developing an adverse reaction, including adverse skin reactions, than men.
For decades (even centuries), when it comes to drugs, scientists have assumed that women are simply smaller versions of men. Many believe that prescribing lower doses is sufficient to treat them. New research challenges that assumption.
Women are not “smaller versions” of men
To determine if women were indeed “smaller versions of men”, the team from the University of New South Wales (Australia) conducted a study on mice. She investigated whether gender differences in preclinical traits – such as body fat, glucose levels or even LDL cholesterol – could be explained by body weight alone.
“Our analyzes revealed sex differences for many traits that cannot be explained by differences in body weight. Some examples are physiological elements, such as iron levels and body temperature, morphological measures such as lean mass and fat mass, or cardiac characteristics such as heart rate variability”wrote the authors of the work Dr Laura Wilson and Pr Shinichi Nakagawa in the journal The Conversation.
It is thus obvious to them that “women are not just smaller versions of men”. Determining a treatment for women only on this assumption is not enough to avoid adverse effects. That is why, according to scientists, women show increased risks of side effects when taking a drug by 50-70% compared to men.
Medicines: research on women’s reactions needed
While in some cases the body weight scale is indeed effective, the experience of Australian researchers shows that this cannot be generalized to all treatments. Thus, according to them, it is essential to have data on the effects of drugs for both sexes. And, neither, have results with a strong male predominance.
“Our study reveals how males and females may differ on many preclinical traits. This indicates that biomedical research needs to focus more narrowly on how to measure gender differences.” For them, such work would reduce reactions to drugs.