In their insight, Gate One looks into how historically, women and women’s health have been overlooked in medical fields. Women have frequently been excluded from medical studies, with women only making up 24% of clinical trial participants for FDA drugs between 2010 and 2013. This has led to a lack of understanding of how diseases, and ultimately their treatment, can affect women differently compared to men. For example, early research in cardiovascular disease, a top killer among both men and women, largely involved male subjects, leading to the hallmark symptoms of heart attacks being taught as pain in the left arm and chest. Women, however, owing to different underlying biology and risk factors, are reported to be more likely to experience other symptoms, which are often labelled as “atypical.” As a result, women are 50% more likely than men to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack and more likely than men to die from heart attacks.
T his won’t come as a shock to men or women. What it poses is a striking opportunity for consumer health companies to put women’s health at the forefront of their strategy. Not only to fix the embedded issues in healthcare when it comes to women, but to understand the complexities in women’s health and the opportunities this brings. This can be shown in three key areas.
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