scholarly journals Considering sex and gender in Alzheimer disease and other dementias

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-446 ◽  

Suffering related to dementia is multifaceted because cognitive and physical functioning slowly deteriorates. Advanced age and sex, two of the most prominent risk factors for dementia, are not modifiable. Lifestyle factors such as smoking, excessive alcohol use, and poor diet modulate susceptibility to dementia in both males and females. The degree to which the resulting health conditions (eg, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease) impact dementia risk varies by sex. Depending on the subtype of dementia, the ratio of male to female prevalence differs. For example, females are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer disease dementia, whereas males are at greater risk of developing vascular dementia. This review examines sex and gender differences in the development of dementia with the goal of highlighting factors that require further investigation. Considering sex as a biological variable in dementia research promises to advance our understanding of the pathophysiology and treatment of these conditions.

2021 ◽  
pp. 001458582199184
Author(s):  
Danila Cannamela

In her debut book Dolore minimo, Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto engages in a reflection on motherhood to recount an autobiographical story of gender self-determination and male to female transition. This article explores Vivinetto’s poetry as the retelling of transformative moments in two mother–daughter relationships, which generate a reshaping of life and language. In the book, these two storylines intersect, blur, and even overlap, creating a poetic discourse in which the maternal acts simultaneously as powerful catalyzer and producer of meanings. In discussing how, in Dolore minimo, the relationship of two atypical mothers becomes the creative site of a new possible symbolic order, my analysis engages an atypical approach: it reads Vivinetto’s queer representation of motherhood via the theorization developed by the women of Diotima—including, in particular, Luisa Muraro, Chiara Zamboni, Diana Sartori, and Ida Dominijanni. These feminist thinkers have been generally criticized for reinforcing binary understandings of sex and gender, based on an essentialist view of the category of woman. Yet, what if the feminism forwarded by Diotima, by positioning the feminine as a creative producer and first-person narrator of change, could still offer a productive avenue for dialogue? The article begins with a discussion of Diotima’s key theorizations, which lays the groundwork for interpreting the maternal poetics of Dolore minimo. The subsequent sections examine in more depth how Vivinetto’s poetry has reinvented the figure of the mother as a teacher and learner of new words, and how, through this reinvention, she has crafted a maternal language that knits together new relations of contiguity and change. Ultimately, by redeploying the figure of the mother beyond cisgender norms, Vivinetto’s poetry is revealing the inexhaustible vitality of this character.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 174550651881799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa K Andrew ◽  
Mary C Tierney

Objective: There are impressive differences in the incidence, prevalence and experience of women and men with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Notably, two-thirds of those with AD, the most common form of dementia, are women. Our objective was to provide a literature-based framework to understand these sex and gender differences in AD. Methods: We conducted a narrative review to examine sex and gender influences on AD. Results: We present a framework to understanding why these sex and gender differences exist in AD. This includes the influence of longevity (women live longer than men), biological differences (hormonal differences, epigenetics and frailty), differences in cognitive performance (women and men tend to perform differently on some cognitive tests), and gendered social roles and opportunities (educational and occupational opportunities, functional roles post-retirement). Our review clearly indicates the complex interaction of these sex and gender differences and variability within each. Conclusions: Given these important sex and gender differences in AD, we provide recommendations and steps forward describing how both sex and gender should be considered in dementia diagnosis and management and in the design and implementation of dementia research, including studies of caregiving interventions and models of dementia care.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (25) ◽  
pp. 12220-12225 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kantner ◽  
David McKinney ◽  
Michele Pierson ◽  
Shaza Wester

An understanding of the division of labor in different societies, and especially how it evolved in the human species, is fundamental to most analyses of social, political, and economic systems. The ability to reconstruct how labor was organized, however, especially in ancient societies that left behind few material remains, is challenged by the paucity of direct evidence demonstrating who was involved in production. This is particularly true for identifying divisions of labor along lines of age, sex, and gender, for which archaeological interpretations mostly rely upon inferences derived from modern examples with uncertain applicability to ancient societies. Drawing upon biometric studies of human fingerprints showing statistically distinct ridge breadth measurements for juveniles, males, and females, this study reports a method for collecting fingerprint impressions left on ancient material culture and using them to distinguish the sex of the artifacts’ producers. The method is applied to a sample of 985 ceramic sherds from a 1,000-y-old Ancestral Puebloan community in the US Southwest, a period characterized by the rapid emergence of a highly influential religious and political center at Chaco Canyon. The fingerprint evidence demonstrates that both males and females were significantly involved in pottery production and further suggests that the contributions of each sex varied over time and even among different social groups in the same community. The results indicate that despite long-standing assumptions that pottery production in Ancient Puebloan societies was primarily a female activity, labor was not strictly divided and instead was likely quite dynamic.


Author(s):  
Brian Burns

This paper is intended to promote discussion of the human processes involved in Engineering and Design. For the convenience of discussion, a distinction is proposed, between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ - ‘males and females’ and ‘masculine and feminine’. Recent work studying the participation of female students in the currently male dominated profession of engineering is reviewed. The paper thus explores engineering and design, left-handedness, hunting and gathering, communication, collaboration, sustainability, nurture, holistic thinking, the Kyoto Accord, and how developments in the masculine and feminine aspects of design and engineering may well be essential to the future of Design Engineering.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-352 ◽  

The prevalence, age of onset, and clinical symptoms of many neuropsychiatric diseases substantially differ between males and females. Factors influencing the relationships between brain development and function and sex or gender may help us understand the differences between males and females in terms of risk or resilience factors in brain diseases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1620
Author(s):  
Naim Abu-Freha ◽  
Roni Gat ◽  
Aerin Philip ◽  
Baha Yousef ◽  
Liza Ben Shoshan ◽  
...  

Sex and gender can affect the prevalence and prognosis of diseases. Our aim was to assess similarities and differences for males and females who underwent an upper endoscopy, with regards to indications and results. We reviewed all upper endoscopy reports from 2012 to 2016. Data regarding demographics, indications, and procedure findings were collected. The upper endoscopy findings were compared regarding the most common indications: gastroesophageal reflux, abdominal pain, gastrointestinal bleeding, and anemia. We investigated 12,213 gastroscopies among males (age, 56.7 ± 17.4) and 15,817 among females (age, 56.0 ± 17.3, p = 0.002). Males who underwent an upper endoscopy for gastroesophageal reflux had higher rates of esophagitis (7.7% vs. 3.4%, p < 0.001) and Barret’s esophagus (4.4% vs. 1.5%, p < 0.001). Females who underwent an upper endoscopy for abdominal pain had a higher rate of hiatal hernia, whereas males had higher rates of esophagitis, helicobacter pylori infection, gastritis, gastric ulcer, duodenitis, and duodenal ulcer (p < 0.001). Gastrointestinal bleeding as an indication for upper endoscopy showed that helicobacter, duodenitis, and duodenal ulcers are more common among males compared to females (p < 0.001). Males with anemia who underwent an upper endoscopy had higher rates of esophagitis (p = 0.021) gastritis (p = 0.002), duodenitis (p < 0.001), and duodenal ulcer (p < 0.001). We found significant differences regarding the pathological gastroscopy findings between males and females in relation to the different indications.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fransiska Rahayu Myrlinda

ABSTRACT             Being males and females is biologically constructed since human beings were born. Meanwhile, there is also strict distinction done by society to divide people into men and women or usually called as doing gender stereotype. It effects on different assumptions that are attached to them. As the result, people are categorized based on their own gender roles in society. Java, as the symbol of patriarchal society, is the ethnic which agrees with this social phenomenon. Its beliefs symbolize how men and women have different social status. It also results in different gender roles. SITI is the film which deals with this phenomenon. It shows that being “obedient” Javanese women will give effect on social status towards different genders. The theories of sex and gender and also patriarchal society were used to get the reliable data. Keywords: SITI, Sex and Gender, Inequality, Javanese’s beliefs ABSTRAK                 Menjadi pria dan wanita secara biologis dibangun sejak manusia dilahirkan. Sementara itu, ada juga perbedaan mendalam yang masyarakat lakukan untuk membagi manusia menjadi pria dan wanita atau biasa disebut sebagai stereotip di gender. Hal ini berpengaruh pada perbedaan asumsi yang melekat padanya. Sebagai akibat, manusia dikategorikan berdasarkan peran gender mereka sendiri di masyarakat. Jawa, sebagai simbol masyarakat patriarkal, adalah etnis yang setuju dengan fenomena sosial ini. Kepercayaan yang ada pada masyarakat Jawa melambangkan bagaimana pria dan wanita memiliki status sosial yang berbeda. Hal ini juga menghasilkan peran gender yang berbeda. SITI adalah film yang merepresentasikan fenomena ini. Film ini menunjukkan bahwa sebagai perempuan Jawa yang “taat” akan memberikan efek pada status sosial dari gender yang berbeda. Teori seks dan gender serta masyarakat patriarki digunakan untuk mendapatkan data yang sesuai. Kata Kunci: SITI, Teori seks dan gender, Ketidaksetaraan, Kepercayaan Jawa


Author(s):  
Eugene Han ◽  
Kyung-do Han ◽  
Byung-Wan Lee ◽  
Eun Seok Kang ◽  
Bong-Soo Cha ◽  
...  

Abstract Context There are few studies focused on the relationship between hypoglycemia and new-onset dementia in patients with type 2 diabetes and no study regarding mortality of dementia after hypoglycemia. Objective We investigated the effect of severe hypoglycemia on dementia subtypes and its relation to overall mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods We evaluated incident dementia, including Alzheimer disease and vascular dementia, among health checkup participants aged 40 years or older in the National Health Insurance System in Korea from January 2009 to December 2015. Episodes of severe hypoglycemia were examined for 3 years before the date of the health checkup. Results Among 2 032 689 participants (1 172 271 men, 860 418 women), 14 443 (0.7%) experienced severe hypoglycemia, during a mean follow-up period of 6.9 ± 1.7 years. Individuals in the severe hypoglycemia group were more likely to be diagnosed with dementia compared to individuals without severe hypoglycemia (23.3% vs 7.3%; P &lt; .001) and the overall incidence of Alzheimer disease was higher than vascular dementia. Dementia risk rose with increasing number of severe hypoglycemic episodes (1 episode [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.54; 95% CI, 1.48-1.60], 2 or more episodes [HR = 1.80; 95% CI, 1.66-1.94]). Overall mortality was higher in participants with dementia, but without severe hypoglycemia (HR = 2.03; 95% CI, 1.96-2.10) and severe hypoglycemia, but without dementia (HR = 4.24; 95% CI, 4.29-4.40), and risk of death was highest in those with both severe hypoglycemia and dementia (HR = 5.08; 95% CI, 4.83-5.35). Conclusion Severe hypoglycemia is associated with dementia, especially Alzheimer disease and mortality; together, they have an additive effect on overall mortality.


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