Science To Go

But why is that? And what does it mean in concrete terms for diagnostics, therapy, and healthcare? This video shows why medicine cannot be precise without considering sex (biological sex) and gender (social and societal influences), and how gender medicine improves healthcare.

• Video Gender Medicine Basic Knowledge

Women die more often from heart attacks, even though men experience them more frequently. Why? The answer lies less in biology and more in a healthcare system that often ignores gender-specific differences.

• Video Gender Medicine Saves Lives

Why do women and men respond differently to pathogens? In this video, you'll learn how the immune system functions differently depending on gender – and why women often react faster and more effectively to infections than men.

• Video Immune System

Many drugs affect women differently – and more often cause side effects. The reason? Dosages are often not adjusted based on sex, even though women absorb, metabolize, and eliminate drugs differently.

• Video Drugs

Sex is the biological condition of being male or female, defined by genes, hormons and sexual organs. Variations of biological sex can occur for example due to changes to an hormone receptor, natural or synthetic exposure to sex hormones during embryo development, and genetic conditions and might affect genitals, chromosomes, hormones, the reproductive systems, and/or gonads leading to a spectrum of intersex phenotypes.

Gender includes the social, psychological, cultural and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity in a given sociocultural environment at a given time. Gender is a multidimensional construct that links gender identity, gender expression, and social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior, that are associated with sex traits.

Gender Medicine, also known as Sex- and Gender-specific Medicine, addresses the biological and sociocultural differences inherent to each individual and their impact on health and disease.

Biological and sociocultural gender have an impact on the presentation, progression, therapy, and diagnosis of diseases. However, gender-specific differences are often overlooked in medicine. Therefore, the Commission on Sex and Gender in Medicine has taken on the task of working with numerous experts to develop factsheets on sex/gender differences in various medical fields.

• Factsheets