# Are there 'Gendered diseases'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 4, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663 "2015-06-04T21:19:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/1 "2015-06-04T21:19:51Z")
Apart from STD’s anyway. Inspired by post number 2 in this thread: > **[Effects of 4 Pandemic Scenarios?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=758146)** > > The Flu Pandemic of 1918 infected 500 million people and killed 3 to 5% of the world’s population. It was unusual, in that it killed predominantly healthy adults, not children and elderly as is normally the case with influenza. Imagine the outbreak... Are there any cases of diseases such as a flu pandemic which killed a significently different percentage of men than women? Gender-targetted biological warfare is something that also crops up in science-fiction occassionally. And please no ‘man flu’ etc cracks, those jokes stopped being funny a long time ago, if they ever even were _(which they weren’t in my opinion)_. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/2 "2015-06-04T21:29:53Z")
Well, there are a lot of diseases that are much more dangerous to pregnant women than to other people. I know that isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/3 "2015-06-04T21:31:20Z")
a few drugs work a lot better on one sex than the other. There is an IBS drug that only works for women. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/4 "2015-06-04T21:36:40Z")
By “disease” do you mean infectious disease? There are all kinds of diseases that have higher prevalence in one gender than the other. Obviously, cancers of the relevant gonads/gender-specfic glands, but also [Parkinson’s](http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/157/11/1015.full), [mental disorders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorders_and_gender) and the list goes on. ---
**Author:** ![Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bag_of_mostly_water/32/1029_2.png) [@Bag\_of\_Mostly\_Water](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bag_of_Mostly_Water)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/5 "2015-06-04T21:38:03Z")
Kind of obvious, but women can’t get any prostate diseases, such as prostate cancer. Or for that matter, testicular cancer. Men can get breast cancer, but it’s much less common than in women. Men also can’t get ovarian cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2015, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/6 "2015-06-04T21:42:04Z")
Thanks for the answers everyone. But yes I meant infectious diseases and pandemics like flu, the black death, ebola etc Like, for example, if the flu pandemic of the early twentieth century killed men at a higher rate than it killed women, or vice versa, or if the recent ebola outbreak did the same. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/7 "2015-06-05T00:26:43Z")
Are you just looking for biological differences, or would cultural ones apply, too? Take ebola, for instance: It’s mostly just caregivers that are at risk for it. It’s such a big deal in Nigeria because there, _everyone_’s a caregiver for a sick family member, so everyone can get it. But one can easily envision a culture where the caregivers are predominantly women, and hence where women would be most at risk from ebola. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/8 "2015-06-05T00:49:52Z")
Certain genetic diseases are more likely to strike one sex than the other. For example, X-linked recessive conditions such as male pattern baldness, certain forms of colorblindness, and Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome, disproportionately strike men since men only get one X chromosome while women get two, and only one working gene is necessary to not get the condition. Also, certain diseases that directly effect reproductive organs could be considered gender-linked, such as erectile dysfunction, cervical cancer, and vaginismus. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/9 "2015-06-05T00:55:22Z")
> [@D18](#): > > …[mental disorders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorders_and_gender)… Good point. Most mental disorders do not require a specific gender for the purpose of diagnosis, but there are some trends. I believe that anorexia nervosa is quite a bit more common in women than men, who are more likely to be diagnosed with conditions like ADHD. There’s nothing in the DSM (mental health handbook) that says that a psychiatrist must verify presence of a vagina before diagnosing anorexia, but anorexia is just something that seems to show a trend toward affecting women. What the reason behind it is is another story - is it more cultural due to media messages about thinness, or is it more innate? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/10 "2015-06-05T01:03:27Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > Thanks for the answers everyone. > > But yes I meant infectious diseases and pandemics like flu, the black death, ebola etc > > Like, for example, if the flu pandemic of the early twentieth century killed men at a higher rate than it killed women, or vice versa, or if the recent ebola outbreak did the same. Here are some for the OP. Certain [STD’s](http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/STDs-Women-042011.pdf) are more problematic to one gender than another. For example, women who get HPV are at high risk of developing cancer as a complication (which could kill if untreated), while men are at risk but not as much. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/11 "2015-06-05T02:38:15Z")
Multiple sclerosis is about twice as common in women as in men. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/12 "2015-06-05T04:03:38Z")
There are some diseases which tend to effect one gender or the other in greater quantiies due to cultural factors. [Phossy Jaw](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phossy_jaw) tended to effect women more because the industry which it was a health risk in, was female dominated. PTSD tends to be more common in men as they are typically exposed to events (such as military action) which cause it in greater numbers. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/13 "2015-06-05T04:05:54Z")
Fictitious, so this doesn’t answer the question at all, but the question in the OP reminded me of Frank Herbert’s novel [The White Plague](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague), which was about a lab-created plague that specifically targeted women (though men were carriers). ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-gendered-diseases/721663/14 "2015-06-05T04:07:24Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > And please no ‘man flu’ etc cracks, those jokes stopped being funny a long time ago, if they ever even were _(which they weren’t in my opinion)_. I’m not aware of any infectious diseases where one gender has a significantly better or worse prognosis than the other. There were some reports that women were more likely to get Ebola in the first place because of the whole caregiver thing, and others that said that the incidence was pretty much a 50/50 split. It may depend on where those people lived, and if the men were around or off in the mines or wherever they went. As for the quote, I had an image early last fall of Dr. Brantly or Dr. Sacra getting some garden variety illness and their wives saying, “You men are such babies when you’re sick. You do not have Ebola, and you can get off the couch and help me (insert name of routine household chore).” :dubious: 😛 And then Dr. Sacra got sick a few weeks after he was declared Ebola-free and admitted to a local hospital with what turned out to be bronchitis. :smack: In addition, Dr. Sacra also had uveitis, the eye inflammation that later afflicted yet another American victim, Dr. Crozier, and in that case temporarily blinded him and led to the affected eye, which a biopsy revealed was chock-full of live Ebola virus :eek:, changing color. Autoimmune diseases are much more likely to affect women than men, and thyroid issues of all types are MUCH more common in women, by as much as a 10:1 ratio.