5 ms·

Why is that all recent studies are showing effects of "name-it" on Women only? I noticed another article which said "Women who don't exercise age faster". http:

Why is that all recent studies are showing effects of "name-it" on Women only? I noticed another article which said "Women who don't exercise age faster". http://chillaxspot.com/you-will-age-faster-if-you-dont-exercise/ http://chillaxspot.com/you-will-age-faster-if-you-dont-exerc...

sametmax 10y ago
My guess is that in their study, other demography didn't show up in the results. Now why is that would be interesting.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- derefr 10y ago
  A possible line of argument: Testosterone increases vascular tone, which increases blood pressure, but also lymphatic flow-rate. This is why all medications for "varicose veins" are marketed only to women: it's not that women are more vein (ow that pun) but rather that they're much more likely to have the inadequate lymphatic flow that leads to veinous over-pressure and sclerotization. The lymphatic system clears blood-borne toxins from the blood, and from organs and interstitial spaces. (You can think of it as projections of the liver, sucking crud toward itself.) So, if women's lymphatic systems tend to work less well on average, they'll be more susceptible to the build-up of such toxins on average—including in organs like the brain.
stephengillie 10y ago
Maybe there's a Submarine campaign in effect, marketing that demographic towards a particular market or product? https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
JamesBarney 10y ago
Women live longer and are therefore at higher risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. This makes it easier to find results that influence dementia risk. Ex. Pollution raises dementia risk 50% it's simpler to detect that dementia in women goes from 50/1000(people) to 75/1000 than to notice men go from 10/1000 to 15/1000.
xkcd-sucks 10y ago
These two studies were part of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) dataset, which investigates post-menopausal women. The study linked in OP used a published dataset, while the exercise study used WHI participants, meaning there was already a lot of data on the participants' health. So, the studies show effects on only women because they investigated only women. Why post-menopausal women? Because menopause is a threshold event for aging that isn't seen as clearly in men. Also, it's easy to simulate (ovarectomy) and reverse (hormones) in model systems.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
Ideally we would see a LOT of these. Many studies to date have been men only, and marketed as generalizable conclusions, when in fact no research about women was done. We need to fill out that missing data.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  So you're saying there is already pertinent and up to date data for the effects of air pollution on men, and so this was for females only with the express purpose of filling the gap? By extension then are you saying that because some studies in the past were only performed on men (presumably because they worked in polluted environments?) then we should get revenge on the male sex by excluding them from studies now? Surely not that. So, what data from the present validates performing initial studies only on one sex, particularly when the modern rhetoric supports the absolute biological equality of men and women. Could you link the most recent male only equivalent to the WHIMS study from the OP? In fact I think the female only nature of the study may relate in a round-about way to hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women. Just speculating though really.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    > So you're saying there is already ... data for ... men? I have no idea what current pollution research is for men, I just know there is a general gap in medical research, so I am fine with it being filled with whatever studies might fill it. By a similar token we ought to issue a large block of Grammys only to black artists for a while, because there is a backlog of unrecognized work. It's not that white people can't make good music, or that they never have. It's just that we've been cranking out white music awards for so long, if we started from the top of the Best Unrecognized Artists list it'd be a long time before we got to a white name. > By extension then... we should get revenge on the male sex... Surely not that. You are correct, it has nothing to do with revenge. Also I'd suggest you be more careful with these "by extension then..." type arguments. If I wanted to extend beyond the words I said, I would have. > So, what data from the present validates performing initial studies only on one sex Well, here's a study that showed only 16% of participants in statins trials are women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16181564/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16181564/ > particularly when the modern rhetoric supports the absolute biological equality of men and women I am not aware of any research to that effect. Perhaps you are thinking of the fact that all studies purporting a connection between biological sex differences and gendered behavior have been discredited due to methodological errors. That's because it is impossible to create an ethical study that separates the effects of gendered socialization from the effects of biological sex. That doesn't mean there are no sex differences. It doesn't even mean sex differences don't influence behavioral. It just means we don't currently know how to do science which can separate the biological causes from the sociological ones.

sametmax 10y ago

My guess is that in their study, other demography didn't show up in the results. Now why is that would be interesting.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
derefr 10y ago
A possible line of argument: Testosterone increases vascular tone, which increases blood pressure, but also lymphatic flow-rate. This is why all medications for "varicose veins" are marketed only to women: it's not that women are more vein (ow that pun) but rather that they're much more likely to have the inadequate lymphatic flow that leads to veinous over-pressure and sclerotization. The lymphatic system clears blood-borne toxins from the blood, and from organs and interstitial spaces. (You can think of it as projections of the liver, sucking crud toward itself.) So, if women's lymphatic systems tend to work less well on average, they'll be more susceptible to the build-up of such toxins on average—including in organs like the brain.

stephengillie 10y ago

Maybe there's a Submarine campaign in effect, marketing that demographic towards a particular market or product? https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

JamesBarney 10y ago

Women live longer and are therefore at higher risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. This makes it easier to find results that influence dementia risk. Ex. Pollution raises dementia risk 50% it's simpler to detect that dementia in women goes from 50/1000(people) to 75/1000 than to notice men go from 10/1000 to 15/1000.

xkcd-sucks 10y ago

These two studies were part of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) dataset, which investigates post-menopausal women. The study linked in OP used a published dataset, while the exercise study used WHI participants, meaning there was already a lot of data on the participants' health. So, the studies show effects on only women because they investigated only women. Why post-menopausal women? Because menopause is a threshold event for aging that isn't seen as clearly in men. Also, it's easy to simulate (ovarectomy) and reverse (hormones) in model systems.

erikpukinskis 10y ago

Ideally we would see a LOT of these. Many studies to date have been men only, and marketed as generalizable conclusions, when in fact no research about women was done. We need to fill out that missing data.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
So you're saying there is already pertinent and up to date data for the effects of air pollution on men, and so this was for females only with the express purpose of filling the gap? By extension then are you saying that because some studies in the past were only performed on men (presumably because they worked in polluted environments?) then we should get revenge on the male sex by excluding them from studies now? Surely not that. So, what data from the present validates performing initial studies only on one sex, particularly when the modern rhetoric supports the absolute biological equality of men and women. Could you link the most recent male only equivalent to the WHIMS study from the OP? In fact I think the female only nature of the study may relate in a round-about way to hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women. Just speculating though really.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  > So you're saying there is already ... data for ... men? I have no idea what current pollution research is for men, I just know there is a general gap in medical research, so I am fine with it being filled with whatever studies might fill it. By a similar token we ought to issue a large block of Grammys only to black artists for a while, because there is a backlog of unrecognized work. It's not that white people can't make good music, or that they never have. It's just that we've been cranking out white music awards for so long, if we started from the top of the Best Unrecognized Artists list it'd be a long time before we got to a white name. > By extension then... we should get revenge on the male sex... Surely not that. You are correct, it has nothing to do with revenge. Also I'd suggest you be more careful with these "by extension then..." type arguments. If I wanted to extend beyond the words I said, I would have. > So, what data from the present validates performing initial studies only on one sex Well, here's a study that showed only 16% of participants in statins trials are women: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16181564/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16181564/ > particularly when the modern rhetoric supports the absolute biological equality of men and women I am not aware of any research to that effect. Perhaps you are thinking of the fact that all studies purporting a connection between biological sex differences and gendered behavior have been discredited due to methodological errors. That's because it is impossible to create an ethical study that separates the effects of gendered socialization from the effects of biological sex. That doesn't mean there are no sex differences. It doesn't even mean sex differences don't influence behavioral. It just means we don't currently know how to do science which can separate the biological causes from the sociological ones.