A Question of Science Podcast - how does biological sex affect health?

[CaveMum]

Haven’t had a chance to listen to this yet, but the blurb sounds promising:

“Our biological sex affects every cell in our body, so how does it influence our health - from embryo development through to the risk of disease and diagnosis? How and why do some conditions affect females and males differently? And what can we do to ensure medicine is safe and effective for everyone, after decades of male biology bias?

Across autoimmune disorders, cancer, dementia, heart disease and even responses to everyday medications, sex‑based biological differences can shape who becomes ill, how symptoms appear and what treatments work.

Join our expert panel as they explore sex differences in biology, hormones and gene regulation.

Panel:
Prof Edith Heard, CEO of the Francis Crick Institute
Natasha Karp, Biostatistician at Astra Zeneca
Prof Petter Brodin, Garfield Weston chair of Neonatology and Professor of Paediatric Immunology, Imperial College, London
Caroline Criado Perez, Author of Invisible Women”

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-question-of-science/id1837162757?i=1000797381222

Small comfort, I guess but at least he's on the biologics. I hope they work for him. I hope you have support too, it's tough on the partner when someone has a lifelong illness.

Thats interesting. My family is rife with autoimmune issues, but oddly only in the men. That second X must be protecting the rest of us.

Well they are heritable, so maybe there's something problematic about the X's that your males are inheriting? Genes are very interesting in the way the exact same one can act differently in men and women. The same region of mutation on gene 15 produces either Prader Willi or Angelman's in the child, depending on whether the gene came from the father for the first or the mother for the second

a tiny group of other people who are irrelevant to the main argument

You would think so, so it is difficult to understand why a poster like this, even adorned with a rainbow, needs to be on the wall of a local hospital x ray waiting room regarding pregnancy.

Pregnancy status for X-ray examinations

We are legally obliged to rule out the possibility of pregnancy before we can proceed with certain examinations.

To maintain compliance with the lonising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017, Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010, we are obliged to ask ALL patients, aged between 11 and 55 years, who are undergoing X-ray examinations between the bottom of the chest and knees, their sex assigned at birth and determine their potential for pregnancy.

This includes individuals identifying as:

• Non-binary
• Transgender
• Intersex
• Gender non-conforming
• Female
• Male

Including those patients in same sex relationships, where one or both have childbearing capacity.

This information will not be recorded or shared without your consent.

*The Radiology directorate are committed to ensuring patients are free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or sexual preference.

You would think that as a medical department at least they would not use the term ‘sex assigned at birth’ or suggest ‘male’ or ‘female’ are identities even though they had already listed ‘Transgender’.