International Women's Day - focus on brain and mental health

My passion is #brain and #mentalhealth, and I am convinced that sex and gender differences are a key to find better solutions for everyone. On #internationalwomensday2020, let us take a moment to consider some of the gaps that many women still face around the globe, in spite of so much progress.

The fact that diseases impact men and women differently is, sadly, still not widely known, even among specialists. The specific needs of women, related to their reproductive life as well as to their socio-economic status, affect everything in their health, from their risk profile, their disease progression to their response to treatment. Even participation to trial is not the same for men and women. There is a huge potential for #precisionmedicine here, to improve the solutions for both men and women, and that's why I co-founded the Women's Brain Project.

But today, let us talk about #women.

Diseases like #Alzheimer, #depression, #migraine, #multiplesclerosis, #neuropathic pain, #NMDA-encephalitis overwhelmingly affect women. In many places around the globe women are still less educated than men, which puts them at higher risk for a number of diseases. Many women in their prime suffer from chronic painful pathologies such as endometriosis and migraine, which often limit their career chances and personal life. And even breast cancer, which affects about 1 in 8 women, has important and not so well-known implications for brain and mental health.

These women need specific, tailored and optimised help from the society and the medical community.

Here a collection of blog posts from the Women's Brain Project highlighting some of the key issues linked to women's brain and mental health. I encourage you to read them, share them and not forget them tomorrow: we need to talk about these issues, study them and start finding solutions.

On #depression: https://www.womensbrainproject.com/women-and-depression/

On #education: https://www.womensbrainproject.com/gender-gap-mental-health-india/

On #breastcancer: https://www.womensbrainproject.com/breastcancer-brainhealth/

On #migraine: https://www.womensbrainproject.com/migraine-facts-migraine-awareness-week-2019/

Happy International Women's Day! And if you are interested in this topic, please join us for the III Women's Brain Forum (Zurich, September 19th-20th 2020, https://www.womensbrainproject.com/wbp-forum-2020/).

#womensbrainpro #IWD2020 #eachforequal