During our last summit, Dr. Janine Clayton spoke with Maria Shriver about the importance of women-based Alzheimer’s research. Here is what she had to say about why the NIH and the scientific community must support gender-based research.
WAM: Why is it important to include women in research studies? What is the benefit of funding gender-based research?
Dr. Clayton: We need more studies and more different kinds of studies because we’re playing catch up here. We just don’t have the data, because long ago, it was just men being included in the research. So now we have women included, but we still don’t have long-term data. But because of newer research, we now know that being male or female is so important to our health and plays such a critical role in influencing health and disease. So if women are not included, we don’t understand if a disease or a treatment is going to work for women, maybe for your daughter or your granddaughter. We need women from all backgrounds to participate in the studies, racial and ethnic backgrounds, women of all ages, women of all socioeconomic statuses so that we can generate evidence that’s applicable to the people that actually are affected by the diseases that we’re studying. So that’s why we need everyone included. Those sex differences, differences between men and women, are so important to study, and that’s why we have to have women included in NIH-supported clinical research, so that we can generate evidence that’s relevant to women’s health.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Janine Clayton, click HERE.