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The UCLA findings support the importance of gender-specific clinical trials. Most medication dosages for women have been based on clinical trials primarily conducted on men.

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Humans and mice share 99 percent of their genes.

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I knew it! We are really evolved from Mrs. Brisbey in the Rats of NIMH.

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But when we looked at the gene expression in these four tissues, more than half of the genes differed significantly between the sexes. The differences were not related to reproductive systems—they were visible across the board and related to primary functions of a wide variety of organs."

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Well, that's a relief . . . I was thinking that "parts are determining factors" would crop as an argument again about sex superiority . . .
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
That line startled me as well.
 

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Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
 
Did you mean the "mice" line, rivka?
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Yes. You edited after I posted. Tsk!
 

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Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
 
Sorry. *abashed*
 

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Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
 
It's Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH.

see:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0689710682/sr=8-1/qid=1154146843/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2203408-1272643?ie=UTF8

Good kids book. Read it.

(Okay, I never did- but the whole thing was read to us when I was in third grade.)
 

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Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
 
I'll have to add that to the list of books I would read if I can ever get away with entering the children's section of the library.

--j_k
 

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Posted by Edgehopper (Member # 1716) on :
 
Did it mention how many Harvard female scientists were violently ill on reading the study?
 

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Posted by Allegra (Member # 6773) on :
 
How does different have to imply that one is better?
 

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Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
 
Yes, in the book it's Frisby. In the movie they call her Brisby. Done read it many times. And watched it.

The Secret of NIMH

I always liked Justin, myself. Being partial to swashbuckling heros.

And that crow . . . he was a funny one. What was his name . . . ah, yes, Jeremy.

(Edited to add linky to the movie and change Brisbey to Brisby . . . an extra "e" silly me.)

Note: The 2nd installment wasn't nearly so good, I thought.

[ July 30, 2006, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: Shan ]
 

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Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
 
I never read the books-- because they showed the movie repeatedly at my daycare and I was always scared of it. So I could never bring myself to read it.
 

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Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Oh, kq, that's too bad. It's an adorable little movie. Though I can see where the house filling up with mud with the children inside could traumatize a kid. That's probably a PG scene. The Great Owl and Brutus weren't much better.

Wow, that is a surprisingly creepy movie when you think about it.
 

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Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
 
Yeah, that movie is kind of creepy. Also, Fern Gully. That bad guy always gave me nightmares.

-pH
 

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Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :
 
We saw the movie sometime after reading the book- I didn't like it as much- I think it's a what you saw first phonomenon.

I haven't thought of the book in years, actually. Now I desparately want to read it- the plot was rather deep the more I think about it.
 

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Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
 
Fern Gully is a rather weird movie.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
I wonder why they've never done much sex-specific dosage studies before. It seems like something that would be fairly obvious to do. Ahh well, hindsight, I suppose.
 

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Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
Great link, Rivka.
I wonder if further study in the brain's gender-specific gene expressions will lead to any bombshells?

Juxtapose, because you'd have to double your study samples, leading to higher costs. Plus, it's probably much harder to find female study participants, because of pregnancy and other female-specific concerns.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
That doesn't really make sense to me. Instead of having 500 men in a study, why not 250 men and 250 women? Maybe I'm just displaying my ignorance here, but in this type of study, wouldn't you want the most heterogenous group (relevant to the drug in question of course) possible?

I'm also not sure what pregnancy would have to do with it. I can't imagine that such a large portion of our female population is pregnant at any one time. At least, not so large that they would be lacking for subjects.

The only thing I've been able to think of is some kind of subject prejudice where the testers are less willing (subconciously or otherwise) to risk women than men.

By the way, Morbo, do you work in this field, or a related one?
 

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Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
 
It's not just woman who happen to be pregnant, who of course are unsuitable for most drug-testing. It's all of the potentially fertile women, 16-40+, who could become pregnant during the trials.

No, I don't work in medicine. I just know a little (very little) about experiment design and double-blind studies.
 

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Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
 
And yet there are many clinical studies focusing on women in that age group that don't have difficulty finding subjects.

I don't doubt that reproductive concerns are considered in this process. It's just that eliminating the entire demographic as a viable source of data seems to me to be an overreaction.
 

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Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
 
The larger the study sample, the more it can be applied to people outside the study itself. When you're conducting the study, you wouldn't want to combine the two groups (men and women) if you're trying to find out how the drug reacts in men and women. However, you could have separate and then combined results, and be able to compare between genders. In the case of 500 test subjects, doubling the amount of partipants would be better than halving them in terms of how many you've got for each gender.
 

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