In the world of medical research, men have traditionally been the guinea pigs. Until the past few decades, almost all research on major illnesses has focused on men. In fact, the male-favored gender gap has been criticized as discriminatory, and critics have suggested that it results in better medical care for men than for women.
Why have scientists tended to focus their research on men? A key reason is that men are simpler to study from a biological perspective. They do not have the monthly and lifelong hormonal fluctuations that women have; researchers need to control for women’s hormonal fluctuations when conducting medical research on them.
There is, however, one area in scientific research in which the vast majority of studies and study volunteers have been women: weight loss.Why? When researchers are recruiting participants for a weightloss study, the majority of the volunteers are women. In general, weight-loss trials that are designed to include both men and women include 80 to 90 percent women and only 10 to 20 percent men. This is due to the fact that men tend to be less aware of their need to lose weight, and less focused on weight loss, than women.
The reality is that there are very few studies of weight-loss treatment involving men only in the published medical literature. In doing the research for this book, only three randomized clinical trials (the gold standard in research) done exclusively on men were found. And in the spirit of full disclosure, the condition being treated with weight loss in one of the studies wasn’t even obesity—it was erectile dysfunction.The total number of men in the three studies combined was less than 300! That’s not even a drop in the bucket compared with the thousands of women who have participated in women-only weightloss studies.
The lack of male-oriented obesity research is unfortunate because it limits the available pool of knowledge on how best to help men lose weight. Just as women used to be treated for heart disease based on treatments that had been proved effective in men, weight-loss treatment
strategies have largely come from studies done on women. Assuming that a man is just like a woman in dealing with weightrelated issues is a mistake. Fortunately, Weight Watchers has a great deal of experience in helping men lose weight.
Why have scientists tended to focus their research on men? A key reason is that men are simpler to study from a biological perspective. They do not have the monthly and lifelong hormonal fluctuations that women have; researchers need to control for women’s hormonal fluctuations when conducting medical research on them.
There is, however, one area in scientific research in which the vast majority of studies and study volunteers have been women: weight loss.Why? When researchers are recruiting participants for a weightloss study, the majority of the volunteers are women. In general, weight-loss trials that are designed to include both men and women include 80 to 90 percent women and only 10 to 20 percent men. This is due to the fact that men tend to be less aware of their need to lose weight, and less focused on weight loss, than women.
The reality is that there are very few studies of weight-loss treatment involving men only in the published medical literature. In doing the research for this book, only three randomized clinical trials (the gold standard in research) done exclusively on men were found. And in the spirit of full disclosure, the condition being treated with weight loss in one of the studies wasn’t even obesity—it was erectile dysfunction.The total number of men in the three studies combined was less than 300! That’s not even a drop in the bucket compared with the thousands of women who have participated in women-only weightloss studies.
The lack of male-oriented obesity research is unfortunate because it limits the available pool of knowledge on how best to help men lose weight. Just as women used to be treated for heart disease based on treatments that had been proved effective in men, weight-loss treatment
strategies have largely come from studies done on women. Assuming that a man is just like a woman in dealing with weightrelated issues is a mistake. Fortunately, Weight Watchers has a great deal of experience in helping men lose weight.
