Women are more likely than men to experience adverse side effects from prescription drugs because drug dosages have been historically based on clinical trials involving male participants, according to new research published in Biology of Sex Differences.
Researchers from the University of California Berkeley and the University of Chicago analyzed data from thousands of medical journal articles to identify a gender gap for 86 FDA-approved medications, including cardiovascular drugs and antidepressants.
The researchers asserted that basing prescription dosages on clinical trials conducted on men represents a historic negligence in considering the biological differences between male and female bodies.
The articles that were examined revealed that when women and men were given the same dosages, women had a higher concentration of the drug in their blood and it took longer to leave the body completely. They also showed women faced adverse reactions nearly twice as much as men and experienced worse side effects 90 percent of the time.