How a Woman's Gender Affects Her Health

Health can be confusing, regardless of gender. But women have an added disadvantage. In the past, medicine was dominated by a male point of view. And early medical research focused on—you guessed it—men.

"Now there's a growing understanding that there are significant gender differences in health care," says Wendy Klein, M.D., an internal medicine and women's health specialist. A report by the Institute of Medicine emphasized that researchers needed to know the differences in biology between men and women, with the aim of improving medical practice and therapies.

Differences between men and women exist at the system, organ, tissue, cellular and sub-cellular level, according to the Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR). Men and women also differ in their response to medications. Some differences between men and women are obvious. But others go beyond basic anatomy.

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See ten things women can do to live longer, live better and live happier here.