The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson, and is narrated by Tina Lehman.

Gender bias in medical research. How it operates and why it matters.

Some months ago, the issue of gender bias and medical research came up on the comment board.

It was certainly an issue I'd heard of and occasionally read about.

I'm a proponent of lifestyle design and intervention.

I don't spend as much time as others on the nitty-gritty of medical

treatment, because that's not my message, but the conversation got me thinking. Maybe it was time

for an article on the blog. And so, the questions started coming. How does gender figure into medicine,

and what exactly is gender bias in this context?

How does it operate? How has it been measured? What consequences are there?

How should it influence our trust in medical literature and subsequent recommendations?

The validity of findings, the efficacy of treatment, the safety of drug prescriptions, and finally, what, if

any, progress can we count on in the near future? That was then and this is now, gender bias through

the ages. Bias is a form of systemic error that influences scientific investigations and

distorts the findings.

Bias will always be present in some form during a study, but the goal is to minimize it to the

point where the results can still be trusted. Gender bias then refers to errors that arise

due to differences between male and female participants or target subjects.

Way back when, gender bias was rife in the medical community.

Up until the late 19th century, women were commonly diagnosed with hysteria.

A very convenient condition to imply emotional instability was at the core of any complaints,

particularly when related to the female reproductive organs. Thus, where medical practitioners were faced with female patients

...