Women's differences often not acknowledged

CHICAGO, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Women wake sooner from anesthesia, have less familiar symptoms of heart disease and are more likely to suffer from depression, a U.S. researcher said.

Teresa Woodruff, executive director of the Institute for Women's Health Research and of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said there's a cavernous void in research based on sex and gender because historically most studies have been done on men and the findings applied to women.

Scientists at the institute want to identify gender-based guidelines for the treatment and prevention of disease in women, Woodruff said.

"We should look at every research study with a sex and gender lens and see what applies to women as opposed to men," Woodruff said in the statement. "What are the differences between women and men that need further exploration."

Woodruff said she wants researchers to incorporate gender differences into their studies because many scientists have never considered gender in their research.

"We are trying to instill the premise that biological sex matters in everybody's thought processes," she said.