Ambien Zombies

"Medicine has long worked on the assumption that women are essentially men with boobs and tubes – and so ‘women’s health’ became a term associated with the reproductive organs." 

Simon Crompton

Ambien (Zolpidem), one of the most common sedatives to treat insomnia and jet lags, was approved in 1992. About a decade later, worrying reports emerged about side effects, mostly by women, such as driving accidents the morning after taking the tablets, sleepwalking and bizarre behaviour without any recollection of it afterwards. In 2006, Ambien drew national attention when a disoriented congressman blamed the drug for a crash into a Capitol Hill barrier at 2 a.m.

He ultimately pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs and served a year probation. Around the same time, Sanofi was slammed with a class-action lawsuit by Ambien users who complained of sleep-eating while under the drug's influence. Plaintiffs' lawyer Susan Chana Lask cited examples of clients gobbling buttered cigarettes and raw eggs (including the shells) while in an Ambien-induced haze. "Ambien zombies," she called them. 

Only in 2013 did US drug regulators confirm that the manufacturer's recommended dose was double what women should take. The research prior to the drug's launch, in fact, had not differentiated between men and women (women, in fact, account for 64% of Ambien prescriptions) which was the reason why it had not been realised that women metabolise Ambien more slowly than men and hence still had the drug in their system when they woke up. The blood levels were so high the morning after that activities requiring alertness were impaired - including driving. It seems quite disturbing that sex and gender were not considered in the 1990s, but, even worse, "it's remarkable that this is still the case" (via and via).

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photograph via

World Osteoporosis Day

Since osteoporosis still has the image of being a so-called women's health issue, it is often overlooked in men and becomes an unrecognised and untreated condition leading to higher mortality and morbidity rates in men (Rao, Budhwar & Ashfaque, 2010).



- Rao, S. S., Budhwar, N. & Ashfaque, A. (2010). Osteoporosis in Men. American Family Physician, 82(5), 503-508.
- photograph by the amazing Vivian Maier via

Female Hysteria and Uterine Melancholy: When Honouring the Phallus Becomes the Cure

Without doubt, hysteria is the first mental disorder exclusively attributed to women. It was first described by ancient Egyptians who said the condition derived from a spontaneous uterus movement. In Greek mythology, Argonaut Melampus cured Argo's virgins who exhibited madness by fleeing to the mountains instead of honouring the phallus. Their madness was caused by their uterus being poisoned due to a lack of orgasms leading to "uterine melancholy". The first step of his cure was having the mad virgins take hellebore and then "join carnally with young and strong men". A link between female madness and a lack of "normal" sexual life was established. According to Plato, Aristotle, and Hippocrates, the uterus suffers, is sad and unfortunate when it cannot join with the male body (Tasca et al., 2012).

The Euripidy’s myth says that a collective way of curing (or, if we prefer, preventing) melancholy of the uterus is represented by the Dionysian experience of the Maenads, who reached catharsis through wine and orgies. Women suffering from hysteria could be released from the anxiety that characterizes this condition by participating in the Maenad experience. Trance status guided and cured by the Satyr, the priest of Dionysus, contributed to solving the conflict related to sexuality, typical of hysteria disease.

Hippocrates believed hysteria was caused by abnormal movements of the restless, migratory uterus due to an inadequate sex life:

He asserts that a woman’s body is physiologically cold and wet and hence prone to putrefaction of the humors (as opposed to the dry and warm male body). For this reason, the uterus is prone to get sick, especially if it is deprived of the benefits arising from sex and procreation, which, widening a woman’s canals, promote the cleansing of the body. And he goes further; especially in virgins, widows, single, or sterile women, this “bad” uterus – since it is not satisfied - not only produces toxic fumes but also takes to wandering around the body, causing various kinds of disorders such as anxiety, sense of suffocation, tremors, sometimes even convulsions and paralysis. For this reason, he suggests that even widows and unmarried women should get married and live a satisfactory sexual life within the bounds of marriage.

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- Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G. & Fadda, B. (2012). Women And Hysteria In The History Of Mental Health. Clinical Practice & Epidemiology in Mental Health, 8, 110-119.
- photograph by Harvey Stein via

Gender Differences in Borderline Personality Disorder

According to earlier research, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is more common among women (female to male gender ratio of 3:1) (Sansone & Sansone, 2011). Generally speaking, literature on BPD focuses on women while research on its occurrence in men is rather scarce (Johnson et al., 2003). More recent research, however, suggests that there are no differences in prevalence based on gender but with regard to personality traits. Explanations range from "a subtle female gender bias with regard to the diagnosis of BPD" to sampling bias not reflecting the real gender distribution and an uneven expression in BPD (Sansone & Sansone, 2011).



Men with borderline personality disorder seem to "demonstrate an explosive temperament and higher levels of novelty seeking" and antisocial personality disorder while women show the tendency to "evidence eating, mood, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorders". There are also differences in treatment histories: Men are more likely to be treated for substance abuse, women with pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy (Sansone & Sansone, 2011).

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- Johnson, D. M., Shea, T., Yen, S., Battle, C., Zlotnick, C., Sanislow, C., Grilo, C. M., Skodol, A. E., Bender, D. S., Mcglashan, T. H., Gunderson, J. G. & Zanarini, M. C. (2003). Gender differences in borderline personality disorder: Longitudinal Personality Disorders study. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 44(4), 284-292.
- Sansone, R. A. & Sansone, L. A. (2011). Gender Patterns in Borderline Personality Disorder. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(5), 16-20.
- photograph by Vivian Maier via

Hysterical, Emotional, Exaggerating: Women, Bias and Undertreatment of Pain

"There is now a well-established body of literature documenting the pervasive inadequate treatment of pain in this country. There have also been allegations, and some data, supporting the notion that women are more likely than men to be undertreated or inappropriately diagnosed and treated for their pain."
Hoffmann & Tarzian (2001:13)



Value systems of a culture have an impact on pain perception from the very beginning. Children are socialised how to react to pain, i.e., boys are often discouraged from expressing pain. And when they are adults, they show the same communication patterns. In a study, male pain research participants reported that they "felt an obligation to display stoicism in response to pain". Impression management also seems to play a role since men report less pain in front of a female researcher than a male researcher. Men and women also show differences in how they report their pain to health-care providers. Interestingly, although women are better at describing their pain sensations, they receive less pain medication.

Miaskowski reported on several studies that identified such differences in response and treatment. Faherty and Grier studied the administration of pain medication after abdominal surgery and found that, controlling for patient weight, physicians prescribed less pain medication for women aged 55 or older than for men in the same age group, and that nurses gave less pain medication to women aged 25 to 54.
Calderone found that male patients undergoing a coronary artery bypass graft received narcotics more often than female patients, although the female patients received sedative agents more often, suggesting that female patients were more often perceived as anxious rather than in pain. Another study, examining post-operative pain in children, found that significantly more codeine was given to boys than girls and that girls were more likely to be given acetaminophen.'
Miaskowski further reported on two more recent studies. In a 1994 study of 1,308 outpatients with metastatic cancer, Cleeland and colleagues found that ofthe 42 percent who were not adequately treated for their pain, women were significandy more likely than men to be undertreated (an odds ratio of 1:5). In another study of 366 AIDS patients, Breitbart and colleagues found that women were significantly more likely than men to receive inadequate analgesic therapy. (...)
A recent prospective study of patients with chest pain found that women were less likely than men to be admitted to the hospital. Of those hospitalized, women were just as likely to receive a stress test as men, but of those not hospitalized, women were less likely to have received a stress test at a one month follow-up appointment. The authors attributed the differences in treatment to the "Yentl Syndrome," i.e., women are more likely to be treated less aggressively in their initial encounters with the health-care system until they "prove that they are as sick as male patients." Once they are perceived to be as ill as similarly situated males, they are likely to be treated similarly. (...)

Hoffmann and Tarzian (2001) come to the conclusion that women are taken less seriously when they report pain and seek help. One likely explanation for the gender-specific difference in treatment is the health-care provider's attitude ... and bias. According to several studies, women are also perceived as being able to tolerate more pain than men, as having a "natural capacity to endure pain".

McCaffery and Ferrell explained this seeming contradiction by speculating that while society attributes strength and bravery to men, these characteristics are displayed by an unwillingness to complain or express discomfort rather than by an actual tolerance of discomfort.

Health-care providers tend to doubt the pain experience of women. A great many women feel that their doctor did not take their pain seriously and expected them to put up with it. The image of the hysterical and emotional woman may also be one reason why female chronic pain patients are more likely to be diagnosed with histrionic disorder.

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- Hoffmann, D. E. and Tarzian, A. J. (2001). The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 29, 13-27.
- photographs by Sepp Werkmeister via

World Parkinson's Day

"Bob Hoskins's diagnosis is a reminder of how little we know about Parkinson's."
Jane Hill



More men than women are diagnosed with Parkinson's. When women develop Parkinson's, the age of onset is, on average, two years later than in men. There are also differences concerning the symptoms with, e.g., women showing a tendency to experience a higher rate of depression (via) and dyskinesias than men while rigidity and rapid eye movement behaviour disorder appear in men more often than women (Miller & Cronin-Golomb, 2010). Generally, symptoms such as tremor, rigidity, fumblingness, fatigue, sleep and writing problems are reported by men and women. In a study, women mentioned neck-pain and low back pain more often then men while men had to cope with writing difficulties, fumblingness, gait problems, speech problems, and lack of initiative more often. About 30% did not report having tremor and rigidity (Scott et al., 2000).

::: More: Parkinson's UK
::: More: Parkinson's Foundation

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- Miller, I. N. & Cronin-Golomb, A. (2010). Gender Differences in Parkinson's Disease: Clinical Characteristics and Cognition. Movement Disordorders, 25(16), 2695-2703.
- Scott, B., Borgman, A., Engler, H., Johnels, B. & Aquilonius, S.M. (2000). Gender differences in Parkinson's disease symptom profile. Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 102(1), 37-43.
- photograph of Bob Hoskins (1942-2014) and Michael Caine via

Heart Attack, the Patient's and the Doctor's Gender

"We find that gender concordance increases a patient’s probability of surviving a [heart attack] and that the effect is driven by increased mortality when male physicians treat female patients."
Brad Greenwood



Greenwood et al. looked at records from emergency admissions for heart attacks in Florida from 1991 to 2010, at patients' age, gender, and the emergency room doctors' gender. Results from more than 580.000 patients reveal that "when patients shared the same gender as their doctor, they were more likely to survive". Survival chances also increased when the emergency department had a higher proportion of female doctors and when the male doctor had treated many female patients for heart attacks before (via).

Further analysis showed that men and women had similar chances of survival when they saw female doctors. But male doctors were linked to worse outcomes, particularly for women.
Female patients treated by male doctors were about 1.5 percentage points less likely to survive a heart attack than male patients in the care of female doctors. (...)
These results suggest a reason why gender inequality in heart attack mortality persists: most physicians are male, and male physicians appear to have trouble treating female patients. (via)

images of Star Trek's Dr McCoy via and via

"Her world orbits around doctors. Psychic tension rules her universe."

"Drug addiction—particularly to prescription painkillers and tranquilizers—has long been a feminist issue. Women have been liberally fed pills for their anxiety, depression, and pain for over a century. At one point, the former First Lady of the United States, Betty Ford, undertook addiction treatment for, among other things, tranquilizer abuse. Librium and Valium “were unabashedly promoted as wonder drugs that could be used to help manage an enormous range of life problems, ranging from tension, nerves, and irritability to menopause, juvenile delinquency, family and marital difficulties, and problems at work.”"
Andrea Alessi



"This childless widow's interpersonal relationshps sociometrically diagrammed reveal the patterns of dominance, closeness, absence, and loss created by the principal people in her life.
Her mother's obvious preference for her older sister has always rankled this patient. The deaths of her father and husband accentuated her alienation and hostility. Hypochondriasis is the way she disowns her conflicts.
While you gradually turn her away from somatic concerns and guide her through old, hidden problem areas, you can ease her undue psychic tension with Valium* (diazepam)."

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image (1971) via

Lady, your anxiety is showing

On the visible level, this middle-aged patient dresses to look too young, exhibits a tense, continuous smile, and may have bitten nails or overplucked eyebrows. Symptoms of anxiety are hard to miss. What doesn't show as clearly is the coexisting depression that often complicates treatment.



TRIAVIL offers effective tranquilizer-antidepressant therapy. TRIAVIL provides perphenazine to help allay anxiety and amitriptyline HCI to lift depressive mood and relieve the functional somatic complaints often encountered in patients of this age group.

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image (1970) via

Two Abstracts for World Asthma Day

"Boys are consistently reported to have more prevalent wheeze and asthma than girls. In adolescence, the pattern changes and onset of wheeze is more prevalent in females than males. Asthma, after childhood, is more severe in females than in males, and is underdiagnosed and undertreated in female adolescents."
Almqvist et al., 2007



Abstract 1:
"Gender differences in asthma incidence, prevalence and severity have been reported worldwide. After puberty, asthma becomes more prevalent and severe in women, and is highest in women with early menarche or with multiple gestations, suggesting a role for sex hormones in asthma genesis. However, the impact of sex hormones on the pathophysiology of asthma is confounded by and difficult to differentiate from age, obesity, atopy, and other gender associated environmental exposures. There are also gender discrepancies in the perception of asthma symptoms. Understanding gender differences in asthma is important to provide effective education and personalized management plans for asthmatics across the lifecourse."
Zein & Erzurum, 2015

Abstract 2:
"Asthma is a common chronic disease that affects over 300 million people worldwide, resulting in a considerable socio-economic burden. Literature data suggest that asthma has a higher incidence in females, particularly at certain stages of pubertal development. Moreover, women seem to experience more asthma symptoms than men and to use more rescue medications, resulting in a reduced quality of life. Although several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these differences, there are not yet final data available in the literature on the role of gender in the pathogenesis of asthma and different behavior in females. Some study suggested a more prevalent hyper-responsiveness in women than in men. Nevertheless, in the literature definitive data on a possible different response to drugs used for asthma between males and females are not described. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie these gender differences in clinical history of asthma patients could give inspiration to new areas of research to obtain a more specific diagnostic and therapeutic approach gender-oriented."
Pignataro et al., 2017

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- Almqvist, C., Worm, M., Leynaert, B. (2007). Impact of gender on asthma in childhood and adolescence: a GA2Len review. Allergy, 63, 47-57.
- Pignataro, F. S., Bonini, M., Forgione, A., Melandri, S., & Usmani, O. S. (2017). Asthma and gender: The female lung. Pharmacological Research, 119, 384-390.
- Zein, J. G. & Erzurum, S. C. (2015). Asthma is Different in Women. Current Allergy and Asthma Reports, 15(6), LINK
- photograph "Smog alert, Los Angeles, 1979" via; more photographs: LINK

Living Kidney Donors & Gender: Women Donate, Men Receive

"Instead of simply congratulating women on their altruism, we need to ask about possible reasons for the existing gender imbalance and check it for matters of fairness and undue pressure on a vulnerable group."



According to a report published in 2002, male family members are less likely to donate than their female counterparts. A large Canadian transplant centre found that among those who were acceptable for donation, 36% of wives donated versus 6.5% of husbands. In Germany, women were twice as likely to donate to their husbands, or: men were more reluctant to donate to their wives  (Dobson, 2002). A comparison between female and male kidney donors at a hospital in Delhi shows that in 2012 82% were female and 18% male, in 2015 75% were female and 25% male. When it comes to recipients, men clearly outnumber women. In 2012, 93% of kidney recipients were male and 7% were female, in 2015 79% were male and 21% female (via). The Swiss Organ Living Donor Health Registry analysed data from 1993 to 2003 and came to the conclusion that 65% of kidney donors were female and 64% of recipients were male (Thiel, Nolte & Tsinalis, 2005). Gender disparities were also shown in an analysis of living-donor kidney transplants carried out from 1987 to 2014 in England: 54.7% of donors were women, 39.4% of women were recipients. Differences among ethnic groups could be observed (Peracha, Hayer & Sharif, 2016). Italy is no exception, recipients are males, donors are females (Puoti et al., 2016).

"More than half of living donors are female, females are less likely than males to be on the organ transplant waiting list among chronic kidney failure patients, and wait-listed females are less likely to recieve either a cadaveric or living renal transplant. This disparity not only exists among spouses, in which female-to-male donation rates represent 68-73% of cases, but also between biological relatives, with more mothers, daughters and sisters donating and more fathers, sons and brothers receiving kidney allografts."
Kayler et al. (2003)

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- Dobson, R. (2002). More women than men become living organ donors, online
- Kayler, L. K., Rasmussen, C. S., Dykstra, D. M., Ojo, A.O., Port, F.K., Wolfe, R. A. & Merion, R.M. (2003). Gender Imbalance and Outcomes in Living Donor Renal Transplantation in The United States. American Journal of Transplantation, 3, 452-458.
- Peracha, J., Hayer, M.K. & Sharif, A. (2016). Gender Disparity in Living-Donor Kidney Transplant Among Minority Ethnic Groups. Experimental and Clinical Transplantation, 14(2), 139-145.
- Puoti, F., Ricci, A., Nanni-Costa, A., Ricciardi, W., Malorni, W. & Ortona, E. (2016). Organ transplantation and gender differences: a paradigmatic example of intertwining between biological and sociocultural determinants. Biology of Sex Differences, 7, online
- Thiel, G.T., Nolte, C. & Tsinalis, D. (2005). Gender Imbalance in Living Kidney Donation in Switzerland. Transplantation Proceedings, 37(2), 592-594.
- photograph by Nina Leen (1909-1995) via

Avoidable Blindness and Gender

"By far most of the people who go avoidably blind are women."
Brian Doolan, The Fred Hollows Foundation

About two-thirds of the world's blind are women ... in industrialised countries because of their higher life expectancy, in non-industrialised countries because women have little access to surgery. Cataract (which can be cured by surgery and is responsible for most avoidable blindness) surgical coverage among women in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, for instance, is consistently lower and sometimes half that in men (via).

"In a rapid assessment of cataract surgical services in Pakistan, cataract surgical coverage was found to be 92% for males and 73% for females." (WHO)

"In a cluster sample survey in the Menoufia governorate in Egypt, in which 2426 individuals aged 50 and over were examined, 12% were blind; of these 38.3% were male and 61.7% were female." (WHO)

Women face barriers ranging from the cost of surgery, the inability to travel, lacking social support to lacking access to information (via). By 2010, the number of people living with blindness could triple worldwide (via), many of the people affected will be women, poor, poor women.

"In many cultures and regions, within families and the context of communities, blind and vision-impaired women are not considered as important as men to get services. It’s a question of financing and cost recovery where investment in families is rather going to men and to the younger generation than to women and the older generation." Johannes Trimmel

"It's obscene to let people go blind when they don't have to."
Fred Hollows

"The bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis is responsible for the infectious eye disease of trachoma and is a leading cause of blindness in developing countries. Trachoma infection rates are higher in girls and women, as are repeat infections that can lead to blindness. As primary caregivers, young girls and mothers are more exposed to the infectious agent present in the eye secretions of infants. Peak rates of infection occur in pre-school children, which at this age leads to higher rates of scarring, trichiasis and blindness. Trachomatous trichiasis is the stage of trachoma characterized by inturned eyelashes which abrade the cornea and leads to blindness.
In a recent Egyptian study, recurrence rates of trichiasis after surgery were 44.4% for women, and 37.7% for men. These gender differences may be the result of women delaying surgery. Studies suggest that infection loads and rates of reinfection are higher among girls than in boys. Trachoma-related blindness has been found to be 2 to 4 times higher in women than in men.
A study in Oman found more blindness in women due to trachoma; out of 85 sampled blind women, 25 had trachomarelated blindness and out of 49 sampled blind men, 8 had trachoma-related blindness."
(WHO)

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photographs by Brent Stirton via and via, copyright by the respective owners

Heart Attack & Gender Medicine

"Four out of ten people believe depictions of heart attacks on TV and in films are realistic (...)."  
Rebecca Smith

We have all seen them, the Hollywood heart attacks. Not only are they too dramatic and risk people ignoring their own symptoms when they are milder (via). They also seem to have a tendency to show rather male symptoms.

Leeds University researchers studied the UK national heart attack register. Their sample included records of nearly 600.000 heart attack patients aged between 18 to 100 years old who had been admitted to 243 NHS (National Health Service) hospitals in England and Wales between April 2004 and March 2013. The study found that 198.534 patients had initially been misdiagnosed, i.e. three in ten. Controlling for gender and heart attack type (Stemi and Nstemi), the results show that women who had a final diagnosis of Stemi had a 59% greater chance of having been initially misdiagnosed compared with men while women with a final disagnosis of Nstemi had a 41% greater chance of an initial misdiagnosis.

The differences in diagnosis are "alarmingly high", better tests are currently developed to diagnose female heart attack. It is high time as undiagnosed, untreated heart attacks are likely to damage the heart muscle irreversibly. Initial misdiagnoses mean an increased risk of death (via and via).

More:
- Heart attack symptoms in women
- Heart Sisters

Related postings:
- Depression in Men?
- Anorexia Nervosa and the Forgotten Gender
- Osteoporosis & Gender Medicine
- Breast Cancer & Gender

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- Photograph of Hedy Lamarr by Alfred Eisenstaedt via

Breast Cancer & Gender

"Although it happens more rarely in men, breast cancer is not gender-specific. I was in Costa Rica, and in the shower I felt this lump under my left nipple. It was very small, mind you, but enough to make me call my doctor."
Richard Roundtree



There are a many perfectly designed, viral going campaigns to raise awareness for breast cancer. What they all do have in common is ... they exclusively target women. In men, breast cancer is rare, but it is there. In the UK, for instance, each year around 50.000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women compared with 350 in men (via). As it is a rare situation, most studies are very small (via). In addition, getting support can be more difficult for men with breast cancer (via). The American Cancer Society estimates that about 440 men will die from breast cancer in 2016 (via).

"Breast cancer in men is a rare disease. Less than 1% of all breast cancers occur in men. In 2016, about 2,600 men are expected to be diagnosed with the disease. For men, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer is about 1 in 1,000." Breast Cancer

"Because so many cases of breast cancer occur in women and it is very rare in men, a lot of the information is directed towards women. But much of the information that men with breast cancer need is the same."
Cancer Research UK

::: More information: Cancer Research UK & Breast Cancer

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photograph via

Anorexia Nervosa and the Forgotten Gender

Women have always been the gender associated with anorexia, starting with Richard Morton's description of an anorectic girl in 1691. In the following centuries, the eating disorder was referred to by various authors who observed the disorder primarily in young women (Lange, 2012). Today, not much seems to have changed as statistics clearly show that - although the number of anorectic men is rising - more women than men are affected. However, ...

 

... eating disorders may be overlooked in some groups, i.e. in boys and men as they might not show the "typical" symptoms. Males are less likely to use purging behaviours (vomiting, using laxatives to control weight). In addition, they don't talk about the desire to be thin but to be fit and healthy - which does not set off the alarm bell that quickly. As a result, they are underdiagnosed, undertreated and misunderstood (Strother et al., 2012). Wooldridge calls men the "forgotten gender" when it comes to eating disorders. Since diagnosis and treatment criteria were developed with girls and women in mind, one of the four features of anorexia nervosa (according to DSM IV) is the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles - quite a challenge for boys and men and therefore criticised for its gender bias.

 

"You are not a sketch. Say no to anorexia" is an anti-anorexia campaign that shows typical fashion sketches next to airbrushed models who would be the size the illustrations suggest. (photos via)

 

Holdcroft, A. (2007) Gender bias in research: how does it affect evidence based medicine? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 100(2), 2-3
Lange, B. (2012) Untersuchung der Phospholipidderivate N-Acylphosphatideylethanolamin und N-Acylethanolamin sowie der Hormone Leptin und Ghrelin bei gesunden jungen Frauen und jugendlichen Patientinnen mit Anorexia nervosa vor und nach einer Standardmahlzeit. Freiburg: Dissertation
Strother, E., Lemberg, R., Stanford, S. C. & Turberville, D. (2012) Eating Disorders in Men: Underdiagnosed, Undertreated, and Misunderstood. Eating Disorders, 20(5), 346-355 (via)

Depression in Men?

Marilyn Monroe - if various internet sources are correct - suffered from depression. A typical female disorder? Statistics from the NIH show that women are 70% more likely to experience depression during their lifetime. But...



... according to the gender medicine approach, men seem to suffer from depression as often as women. Men are just less often diagnosed with depression. Statistical differences between men and women are explained by differences in gender roles (e.g. not seeking help), coping styles (e.g. substance abuse) and symptoms leading to an underestimation of the true rates. Men show more anger, aggression and irritability - symptoms that are usually not associated with depression as we are used to focusing on "traditional female symptoms" (see). Once again the behaviour and experience of the dominant group (here women) is seen as normative and those in the nondominant group (here men) are seen as "different". Depression needs to be taken seriously, the relative lack of research on gender and depression raises public health concerns (Addis, 2008).



Addis, M. E. (2008) Gender and Depression in Men. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 15(3), 153-166 (photos via and via)