When a man senses a heart attack, it tends to begin with crushing chest pain. A woman with the same affliction may feel pain in her jaw or around the neck instead.
That kind of difference in how men and women experience symptoms of the same affliction has prompted a group of mostly female doctors at the University of Colorado to begin studying gender differences in an array of ailments such as heart disease and diabetes.
“We are just starting to learn this stuff; it’s pretty shocking,” said Dr. Judy Regensteiner, director of the Center for Women’s Health Research at the medical school in Aurora. “We need to catch up.”
Women were excluded from many medical studies beginning in 1977 and until about 1994 out of researchers’ concerns that their participation could lead to birth defects, Regensteiner said.
The medical community was shocked in particular by the effects of thalidomide, a drug used to treat morning sickness and anxiety later found to cause limb deformities in babies.
Another drug called DES was used to prevent miscarriages until researchers realized it was causing those mothers’ children to have fertility problems later in life.
The center operates with a $2.5 million grant from the women’s health branch of the National Institutes of Health. A major initiative of the group, which includes about 20 professors, involves sharing research with doctors treating women across the region.
The center also hands out $25,000 in seed money to young faculty trying to kick off research that would benefit women. Among the recipients was Dr. Kristen Nadeau, a 37- year-old mother of three trying to figure out why teenage girls are more likely than boys to get Type 2 diabetes — the kind caused by obesity and lack of physical activity.
Theories include that girls generally are more sedentary than boys, who tend to play more sports. Also, girls hit puberty about a year before boys, making their bodies more resistant to insulin at an earlier age.
Nadeau’s research, like most of the studies at the center, also involves male subjects for comparison purposes. The point of much of the center’s research is not strictly to benefit women but to discover the differences in symptoms and treatment for men and women, Regensteiner said.
Also, improving women’s health improves the health of families, she said. Women, more often than not, make decisions about diet and medical care for their husbands and children. And when they exercise — though statistics show they exercise less than men — the whole family is more likely to exercise.
“Women’s health is the health of the family,” Regensteiner said. “What women do can influence their families — and what they don’t do can influence their families.”
Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com
