Women’s Health Is Human Health | Jennifer Garrison, PhD | TEDxSonomaCounty

Key Concepts

• Sex differences in health and aging
• Ovarian aging and its impact on overall health span in women
• Underfunding and systemic bias in biomedical research on women's health
• Economic benefits of investing in women's health research
• The importance of protecting science and choosing knowledge over ignorance

Main Topics and Key Points

Introduction

• The speaker challenges the audience to reconsider their understanding of women's health and emphasizes its importance for everyone.
• Female and male bodies have fundamental differences at the cellular and molecular levels.
• There is a significant knowledge gap regarding female bodies compared to male bodies.

Mind-Body Communication

• The speaker, a neuroscientist, explains mind-body communication and its role in regulating physiology.
• The brain acts as a control center, constantly communicating with organs through wired (electrical signals) and wireless (chemical signals) systems.
• Changes in this communication are linked to systemic aging.

Health Span Disparity in Women

• Women live longer than men on average, but they experience a shorter health span, spending more years in poor health.
• American women spend an average of 12.5 years at the end of their lives suffering from disability and disease.
• This disparity is attributed to the faster aging of ovaries compared to other tissues. Ovaries age 2.5 times faster than other organs.

The Role of Ovaries

• Ovaries are not just for fertility; they are endocrine organs producing numerous hormones that signal to various tissues, including bone, heart, liver, muscle, and skin.
• Ovaries act as "architects of health" and "conductors for aging" in female bodies.
• Understanding ovarian aging is crucial for extending health span in females.

Systemic Issues in Biomedical Research

• Societal taboos, underfunding, and systemic bias have hindered research on women's bodies.
• Before 1993, most clinical studies did not include women.
• The NIH mandated the inclusion of both sexes in animal studies in 2016, but this rule is now at risk of being rolled back.
• The lack of knowledge about female bodies has profound health consequences for women.

Impact of the Knowledge Gap

• Heart attack symptoms present differently in women, leading to misdiagnosis.
• Anesthesia, calibrated on male bodies, can have adverse effects on women.
• Medicines work differently in female bodies, and many drugs pulled from the market by the FDA were due to adverse effects in women because they were not tested on them.
• Between 2008 and 2023, only a small fraction of new drugs approved by the FDA were for female-specific conditions (less than 4% if cancer drugs are excluded).

Economic Benefits of Investing in Women's Health

• Understanding sex differences can improve disease treatment for both sexes (e.g., female immune systems and COVID).
• The Women's Health Access Matters report shows that every $350 million invested in women's health research generates $14 billion for the economy (a 40x return on investment).
• Women control 80% of healthcare dollars, making investment in women's health economically sound.
• Despite this, only 10% of the NIH budget is devoted to women's health, and only 4% of R&D funding is allocated to women's health.

Call to Action

• The speaker demands increased attention and resources for female health research.
• Female bodies have been understudied and ignored for centuries, to the detriment of all.
• Discoveries that could transform medicine for everyone are waiting to be made.
• The speaker emphasizes the need to protect science and choose knowledge over ignorance.

International Women's Day and Current Challenges

• The speaker notes that progress in women's health is being eroded at an alarming pace.
• Politicization of science, censorship of ideas, and the use of research funding as a political weapon are detrimental to everyone.
• The speaker asks for help in protecting science and investing in understanding all bodies.

Notable Quotes

• "Female bodies are different... all sorts of things are set up differently."
• "You can't know what you don't study."
• "Women's health is human health."

Technical Terms and Concepts

• Health span: The period of life spent in good health, free from disability and disease.
• Endocrine organs: Organs that produce hormones, which act as chemical messengers in the body.
• Systemic aging: Aging that affects the entire body, often linked to changes in communication between organs.
• Mind-body communication: The interaction between the brain and the rest of the body, involving both wired (electrical) and wireless (chemical) signals.

Logical Connections

• The speaker begins by establishing the fundamental differences between male and female bodies and the knowledge gap in women's health.
• She then explains the role of mind-body communication in regulating health and how ovarian aging contributes to a shorter health span in women.
• The discussion transitions to the systemic issues in biomedical research that have led to this disparity, highlighting the economic benefits of investing in women's health.
• The speech concludes with a call to action, emphasizing the need to protect science and prioritize knowledge over ignorance.

Synthesis/Conclusion

The speaker argues that understanding female bodies is crucial for improving health outcomes for everyone. The faster aging of ovaries leads to a shorter health span in women, and this issue is compounded by historical underfunding and systemic bias in biomedical research. Investing in women's health research is not only ethically imperative but also economically beneficial. The speaker calls for increased attention and resources for female health research, emphasizing that women's health is integral to human health.