Columnist Susan Snyder: Differences in gender can be unhealthy

Tuesday, May 1, 2001 | 8:11 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder @ lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Women are different than men.

And we're not just talking in the areas of power tools and shoe shopping. We're talking about disease diagnosis and care, and how they differ for women.

On Wednesday Nevada Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, is to present the Women's Health Care Platform, a resolution urging state lawmakers to establish and expand programs that boost women's medical research and care.

The measure, jointly sponsored by 40 other Assembly members and 20 Nevada senators, was created last year by the nonpartisan group Women In Government. Similar resolutions have been presented to state legislatures in Illinois, Tennessee, Texas, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Expanding women's participation in clinical trials and increasing public and private research on how physiological differences between men and women affect medical care and treatment are among the measure's 16 points of action.

Granted, your average resolution has as many teeth as a newborn. It doesn't mandate or make law. It simply informs and asks for endorsement.

But behind all the whereases in this document is a collection of women's health statistics that have some bite. Take a look:

Women make up just more than half the nation's population and account for nearly $2 of every $3 spent on health care. They make 61 percent of the nation's doctors' visits, buy 59 percent of all prescription drugs sold and make 70 to 90 percent of the health care decisions in the nation's households.

And yet, women are affected by disease in a disproportionate number, according to one of the dozens of reports cited by Women In Government's background research.

Women die from cardiovascular disease more often than men. But virtually all random trials on risks and treatments are performed on men, the group says. Why is that?

Heart disease generally goes undetected and untreated longer in women. While chest pains signal heart attacks in men, women heart attack sufferers are more likely to experience abdominal pain, nausea and fatigue.

Nope, I never heard that either. How come?

According to an Archives of Internal Medicine report, men were 115 percent more likely than women to receive coronary artery bypass grafting and 86 percent more likely to get a heart transplant, and 34 percent more men than women receive angioplasty surgery.

Nationally, lung cancer is 70 percent higher in the female population, and death rates for male smokers has leveled off while it continues to rise for females.

National Cancer Institute research even suggests that women smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than their male counterparts, even when they smoke fewer cigarettes for fewer years. Now why is that?

Women who have unprotected sex are 10 times more likely to contract the human immunodeficiency virus than men. Depression is twice as likely to happen to women, and eating disorders occur 10 times more often.

Yet, a third of our medical schools and nearly half our osteopathic schools do not offer courses in recognizing gender differences when making medical decisions.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?