# Mind the gap: widening the demographic to establish new norms in human physiology O’Halloran, K.D., 2020. Mind the gap: widening the demographic to establish new norms in human physiology. The Journal of Physiology 598, 3045–3047. [LINK](https://doi.org/10.1113/JP279986) ## Notes - the majority of research in fitness is done on men and then just applied to women - human studies are increasing year on year - two thirds of all human studies are mixed sex studies - males are studied more than females even in mixed sex studies - women are studied more in mixed sex studies when it comes to motor control and movement, proprioception, and CNS plasticity - women are underrepresented in single sex studies of exercise, muscle and cardiovascular physiology - female only single sex studies account for 8% of published research and focus of pregnancy, menopause and reproductive disease - there are 3 times as many single-sex studies in males than with females within a 3-year period of review - pooling male and female data may hide meaningful physiological differences - The Gender Data Gap in Exercise and Fitness Research %% [[(O'Halloran, 2020) Mind the gap.pdf]] ## Annotations ### [[human studies are increasing year on year]] > Analysis of original research articles published in The Journal of Physiology between January 2017 and December 2019 reveals that 27% of the total original research articles involve human participants or human tissue samples, with the total number of human studies and relative proportion increasing year-on-year ^y1zd2 ### [[two thirds of all human studies are mixed sex studies]] ### [[ males are studied more than females even in mixed sex studies]] > Encouragingly, two-thirds of studies involving human participants are mixed-sex studies, and whereas there remains a broad imbalance within many studies, suggesting the need for further change, when all human studies in all fields are combined the average ratio is 57%:43% (male:female) ^sh791 ### [[ males are studied more than females even in mixed sex studies]] > Mixed-sex studies of exercise, cardiovascular and muscle physiology are male dominant, with notable exceptions ^d9auq ### [[women are studied more in mixed sex studies when it comes to motor control and movement, proprioception, and CNS plasticity]] > Mixed-sex studies of motor control and movement, proprioception, and CNS plasticity are often female dominant. ^t1te9 ### [[women are underrepresented in single sex studies of exercise, muscle and cardiovascular physiology]] > There remains a considerable portion of single-sex studies, with a male bias. ^75bp4 > Again, it is evident that studies of exercise, muscle and cardio- vascular physiology emerge as areas that commonly study male participants only ### [[female only single sex studies account for 8% of published research and focus of pregnancy, menopause and reproductive disease]] > Studies exclusively in female participants account for 8% of published studies involving human participants and tend to relate to aspects particular to the female sex (pregnancy, menopause, reproductive disease), with some exceptions ^sf0dz ### [[there are 3 times as many single-sex studies in males than with females within a 3-year period of review]] > There are 3 times as many single-sex studies in males compared with females within the 3-year period of review ^igiiw ![[Mind the gap.jpeg]] ### [[pooling male and female data may hide meaningful physiological differences]] > Moreover, if sex differences exist, then the pooling of data increases variability and may be such that there is less statistical power to detect a meaningful physiological difference than the original sample size might have suggested, unless accounted for in the design phase ^rz3r1 > There are clear gaps in the knowledge base and perhaps a risk of a skewed understanding of ‘normal’ physiology in a healthy population.