Women's health research: prescribing change and addressing the issues

Article Abstract:

American women now outlive men by an average of seven years, and even though heart disease, cancer and stroke kill women as well as men, few research studies have included women. An exception is the Women's Health Initiative, begun in 1992, which will study the effects of hormone replacement therapy, changes in diet and nutritional supplements on women's health. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has also created the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH), which will attempt to recruit more women into clinical trials. ORWH published a report in 1992 called Opportunities for Research on Women's Health, which contains an agenda for research on women's health. In addition, every study of a disease or condition that affects women as well as men should examine any gender differences in disease presentation and outcome. The fragmented care received by women has led some to suggest the development of a women's health specialty. The NIH is also developing workshops to retrain women scientists.

Editorial

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Academic medicine as a public trust

Article Abstract:

Society entrusts academic medicine with the responsibility for performing several important missions to improve the health of the public, including education, patient care, and research. Considerable money and autonomy give this trust authority. While academic medicine has done well in the areas of research and development and in declines in the death rates from heart disease and stroke, it has been relatively unresponsive to certain persistent public health problems, including rising medical costs, poor indexes of population health, uneven care quality, poor geographical and specialty mix of doctors, and widespread disability from long-term physical and psychiatric problems. If academic medicine pursues too narrow a mission, it may violate its tacit contract with society and jeopardize its funding. It can, however, broaden its activities to address the health concerns of the general population.

Management, Planning, Health planning, Medical education

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The greater risk of alcoholic cardiomyopathy and myopathy in women compared with men

Article Abstract:

Women appear to be more susceptible than men to the harmful effects of alcohol. Researchers measured the strength of the deltoid muscle and several different cardiac functions in 50 alcoholic women and 100 alcoholic men. Although the females consumed only 60% of the ethanol males consumed, they had a similar incidence of skeletal muscular weakness and alcohol-induced heart disease. Half of the alcoholic women and 45% of the alcoholic men had muscle damage. A third of alcoholic women and a third of alcoholic men had heart disease, but the doses of ethanol that caused heart disease in women were considerably lower.

Complications and side effects, Risk factors, Alcoholism, Muscle diseases, Cardiomyopathy, Muscular diseases, Myocardial diseases, Alcoholic myopathy

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