Mars, Venus.... Mercury? Doctors on genetic differences
In the ancient Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses, and contemporary schlock sociology, men are governed by Mars and women by Venus. And while "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" author John Grey seems silent on the matter, doctors were governed by Mercury.
Ancient Romans picked up their gods pretty much wholesale from ancient Greece, lifting the attributes and aspects of Mars, Venus and Mercury from Ares, Aphrodite, and Hermes, respectively.
Mercury -- Hermes in Greek -- filled the role of the trickster-god archetype. And via Science Daily News comes word that a Greek doctor, Nikolaos A. Patsopoulos, M.D., of the University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece, is reprising the role of trickster for those who can't get it through their thick skulls that people, male and female, man, woman, and child, are actually all a single species from Earth.
Science Daily — A review of previous research suggests that prominent claims of sex differences of gene-disease associations are often insufficiently documented and validated, according to an article in the August 22/29 issue of [The Journal of American Medical Association.]
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From a database search the authors identified 77 articles with 432 sex-difference claims.
Of these claims, 286 (66.2 percent) sex comparisons were reported as being decided a priori (in advance of the study) and 68 (15.7 percent) were acknowledged to be post hoc (after the study) analyses; in the other 78 (18.1 percent), the analysis plan was unclear. Appropriate documentation of gene-sex interaction was recorded in 55 claims (12.7 percent); documentation was insufficient for 303 claims and spurious (not valid) for the other 74. Data for reanalysis of claims were available for 188 comparisons. Of these, 83 (44.1 percent) were nominally statistically significant, and more than half of them (n = 44) failed to reach nominal statistical significance of a certain level. Of 60 claims with seemingly the best internal validity, only one was consistently replicated in at least two other studies.
"... the majority of these claims were insufficiently documented or spurious, and reporting of statistical interaction tests was rare," the authors write.
"We hope that our empirical evaluation will help sensitize clinicians, geneticists, epidemiologists, and statisticians who are pursuing subgroup analyses by sex or other subgroups on genetic associations. The pursuit of gene-sex interactions should not be necessarily abandoned. Ideally, sex differences should be based on a priori, clearly defined, and adequately powered subgroups. Post hoc, discovery-based analyses are also of interest, but their post hoc character should be clearly stated in the manuscript. Both a priori and post hoc claims should be documented by interaction tests and proper consideration of the multiplicity of comparisons involved. Even then, results should be explained with caution and should be replicated by several other studies before being accepted as likely modifications of genetic or other risks."
To summarize: while some gene/sex/disease interactions are bound to exist, our cultural insistence that men and women are *very* different (i.e. so different we might be from different fucking *planets!*) may be influencing not only incorrect decisions about who is or isn't "fit" to lead countries or families but also incorrect decisions about how disease affects us.
The descriptions we give each other about gender matter. They matter when you decide to set someone's salary. They matter when you go to the polls. They matter when you got to the doctor. And sure, we probably can never be totally free of stereotype or bias, and there would be consequences of ignoring all differences just as there are consequences today of imagining they're solar-system wide. But the closer we can get our descriptions to what's *actually happening* -- the closer we can get our maps to the actual terrain -- the happier... *and evidently healthier... we're likely to be.
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