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Men and women stay healthy differently Sunday Dec 4, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Sharon Johnson for the Mail Tribune Health conditions affect men and women differently. Consider your own personal experience. Let’s say your spouse has a cold or the flu and he’s flat on his back in bed — sneezing a lot and professing total misery. He wants chicken soup and your attention. But you have the flu, too. But you’re the one making soup and offering soothing words. That may not be a fair illustration, but it will hopefully keep you reading this column. What I offer today goes way beyond a cold or the flu. Let’s focus on the most current medical evidence related to gender and health. Start with colon cancer. According to a recent article in an issue of Consumer Reports on Health, it typically occurs earlier in men. And they are “more likely to delay testing.” What about heart disease? It’s often overlooked in women and strikes later in life (average age 72), and heart attacks “tend to be deadlier.” Women have different symptoms than men (jaw pain, back pain, shortness of breath). And in these situations, they are the ones less likely to seek help. Consider depression. Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed. For many reasons, depression is more difficult to identify in men; it often appears as fatigue and irritability, not sadness. Once it is named and treatment is initiated, women typically respond better to certain classes of anti-depressants than men do. There are also health-related differences in an area you may not have considered: smoking cessation. ”Women are less likely than men to succeed at quitting smoking.” They reportedly do not respond as well to nicotine replacement (the patch or gum). Medications affect men and women differently no matter what the health issue. According to dean of the school of pharmacy at the University of California, “men appear to metabolize many drugs faster.” One important illustration involves women taking a prescription sleep medication, which is absorbed into their systems more slowly and may, therefore, have more “morning after” effects such as driving impairment. Medication differences can be significant in many areas. Beta blockers prescribed for hypertension can have a stronger effect on women, and women taking blood thinners may be “more prone to internal bleeding.” Dosage is critically important. No matter what your gender, this kind of information is potentially useful. No matter what your gender, the disease most people worry about the most is Alzheimer’s. More women acquire the diagnosis, but perhaps that’s because they also tend to live longer. Alzheimer’s has a “quicker onset in men” and progresses faster. And men are “less likely to have obvious memory loss and more likely to have behavioral symptoms such as aggressiveness and agitation.” Finally, consider pain. Yes, “women feel more pain,” according to medical experts. This means they may be more likely to be given prescription pain relievers in higher doses over longer times periods. And that can lead to addiction. Lots to think and talk about. Make sure you are treated right. — Sharon Johnson is a retired Oregon State University associate professor. Reach her at [email protected].