{"id":5659,"date":"2025-07-01T13:54:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T12:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=5659"},"modified":"2026-01-20T12:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:24:45","slug":"the-oversight-in-medicine-women-arent-small-men-so-why-does-medicine-treat-them-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/scitech\/2025\/07\/01\/the-oversight-in-medicine-women-arent-small-men-so-why-does-medicine-treat-them-like-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The oversight in medicine: Women aren\u2019t small men, so why does medicine treat them like it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever taken medication and felt worse instead of better? You\u2019re not alone\u2014especially if you are a woman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Women make up half of the population, yet they have historically been excluded from clinical drug trials. Even today, most trials rely on male bodies as the default, overlooking crucial biological differences like hormone cycles, metabolism, and body chemistry. As a result, women are nearly twice as likely to experience adverse drug reactions, making it evident that research treating the male body as the standard risks everyone else\u2019s safety.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These clinical trials don\u2019t just incorporate bad science\u2014 they are cemented in gender bias, and they affect the safety of the medicines we rely on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why \u201cOne Size Fits All\u201d Medicine Fails Women\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The roots of this imbalance go deep. In 1977, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended excluding women of childbearing age from early-phase clinical trials due to potential pregnancy risks. The policy was so broad that it even precluded women who used contraception, were not sexually active, or whose partners had vasectomies. What began as a precaution quickly turned into near-total exclusion. For over a decade, medical research focused almost exclusively on young, healthy men, treating their bodies as the default.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even after the policy was reversed in 1993, male-dominant study designs remained the norm. Although women were gradually reintroduced into trials<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>their results were frequently analysed in aggregate, without considering sex-specific responses, masking crucial biological differences. One of the most common justifications? <\/span>\u201cWomen are hormonally complex, and that distorts the data.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>But this overlooks a simple truth: <\/span><\/p>\n

women are not small men<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Designing around male biology doesn\u2019t simplify science\u2014it limits and distorts it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A 2001 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that eight out of ten drugs withdrawn from the market posed greater health risks for women. Additionally, the 2020 study in <\/span>Biology of Sex Differences <\/span><\/i>showed that most preclinical testing still uses male animals and male-derived cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

One striking example is the sleep aid Ambien. Women metabolised the drug more slowly, leading to next-day drowsiness, impaired driving, and increased accident risk. Despite the drug\u2019s FDA approval in 1992, it wasn\u2019t until 2013 that they cut the recommended dose for women in half.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Hormones Become an Excuse to Ignore\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

This imbalance doesn\u2019t remain in academic writing\u2014it affects real lives. Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed, receive incorrect drug dosages, or have their symptoms dismissed altogether. Conditions like heart attacks often go unnoticed in women because their symptoms, such as fatigue or nausea, don\u2019t match the \u201cstandard\u201d male presentation taught in medical schools.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Autoimmune diseases, which disproportionately affect women, often take years to be diagnosed. Their pain is frequently attributed to stress, anxiety, or simply described as \u201coverreacting.\u201d This en masse brush-off is no coincidence\u2014it\u2019s what researchers now call <\/span>medical gaslighting<\/span><\/i>: the dismissal or minimisation of a patient\u2019s bodily knowledge by medical professionals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From Lab Bench to Prescription: The Gender Gap Persists\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The problem also goes beyond the mindset of medical professionals\u2014it\u2019s embedded in our technology. Algorithms used in diagnosis and drug development are often trained on male-biased data, making them less accurate and more dangerous for women. Medical systems aren\u2019t failing women because of their biology. They\u2019re failing because they were never designed with women in mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How to Fix a System That Was Never Built for Her\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Fixing this gap requires more than just adding women to trials\u2014it demands a systemic redesign. Clinical studies must be built from the ground up with sex-based variables in mind; this means analysing and publishing results by sex, designing protocols that account for hormonal cycles rather than avoiding them, and using both male and female cells and animals in preclinical phases.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Medical journals and regulatory bodies must stop treating sex-disaggregated data as optional. Funding bodies should prioritise studies that address women\u2019s health with the nuance it deserves, not as a side issue, but as central science. Most importantly, researchers must shed the myth of the \u201cneutral\u201d male subject. <\/span>Science that excludes half the population is not neutral; it\u2019s incomplete.<\/span><\/p>\n

The purpose of medicine is to heal, but if the science behind it only fits some bodies, then it only serves some people. Women have been treated as biological inconveniences in a system designed around men. How many women have walked away from clinics, not with answers, but with doubt? That\u2019s not just unfair. It\u2019s unsafe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If we want medicine that truly serves everyone, we must stop asking women to fit the mould and start demanding that the mould itself change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever taken medication and felt worse instead of better? You\u2019re not alone\u2014especially if you are a woman.\u00a0 Women make up half of the population, yet they have historically been excluded from clinical drug trials. Even today, most trials rely on male bodies as the default, overlooking crucial biological differences like hormone cycles, metabolism, and body […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":5660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":27,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[549,1243,177,611,694,608,1130,1131],"wf_post_folders":[180],"class_list":{"0":"post-5659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scitech","8":"tag-clinical-trials","9":"tag-drug-development","10":"tag-feminism","11":"tag-gender","12":"tag-gender-equality","13":"tag-gender-gap","14":"tag-medical-care","15":"tag-medical-science"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Melisa G\u00fczelo\u011flu","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/melissagzlgl\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/female-researcher-laboratory-with-test-tubes-vaccine-bottle-300x214.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Science & Environment<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Science & Environment<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["clinical trials<\/a>","drug development<\/a>","feminism<\/a>","Gender<\/a>","gender equality<\/a>","Gender gap<\/a>","Medical care<\/a>","medical science<\/a>"],"unlinked":["clinical trials<\/span>","drug development<\/span>","feminism<\/span>","Gender<\/span>","gender equality<\/span>","Gender gap<\/span>","Medical care<\/span>","medical science<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"1","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 1 year ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 1 July 2025","modified":"Updated on 20 January 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 1 July 2025 13:54","modified":"Updated on 20 January 2026 12:24"},"featured_img_caption":"Female Researcher with test tubes and vial via Freepik","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5670,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5659\/revisions\/5670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5659"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=5659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}