OVERLOOKED - DEMAND BETTER

It’s International Women’s Day—a day to celebrate progress, demand change, and, apparently, remind the scientific community that women exist. Because somehow, in 2025, we are still reading studies that pretend half the population doesn’t matter.

Take this one: The effects of a high protein diet on indices of health and body composition—a crossover trial in resistance-trained men (reference here).

Twelve men. No women.

Now, if you’re a 25-year-old, resistance-trained guy, congratulations—this study might actually tell you something about yourself. But if you’re a woman? Forget it. This research tells you absolutely nothing.

And yet, here’s what happens. Studies like this make their way into headlines, into medical advice, into dietary guidelines. They shape how we understand fitness, nutrition, and health. And they do so while completely ignoring the fact that women’s bodies do not function like men’s.

Let’s start with the basics. Women’s hormonal cycles dramatically influence metabolism, muscle growth, fat storage, and recovery. Women don’t have the same testosterone levels as men. They process protein differently. They burn fat at different rates. They recover from exercise on a different timeline. Their bodies are governed by an entirely different physiological framework.

But none of that is accounted for when a study includes only men. None of that is reflected in the conclusions. Instead, we get a neat little headline: “High-Protein Diet Increases Muscle Mass.” And women everywhere are left to guess if that’s true for them, too.

The answer? Who knows. Because the study never bothered to find out.

So, let’s get practical. You’re a woman. You want to know if an intervention—be it a diet, a medication, a training plan—is right for you. Here’s your game plan:

1. Ignore the glamorous headline of your Sunday newspaper. Medical reporting is notoriously unreliable. Journalists rarely read the full study, and even when they do, they often lack the expertise to interpret the findings correctly.
2. Find the study population. This is the small section after the introduction in the actual study that tells you who was actually studied. If there are no women, close the tab. The findings are not generalizable to you. Move on. Forget about it.
3. Check for women like you. If the study does include women, are they your age? Your weight? Your ethnicity? Do they have your risk factors, your medical conditions? If not, move along. The study tells you nothing about how you would respond to the intervention.
4. Watch out for small sample sizes. Twelve people is not a population. If the study is that small, the results are essentially a coin flip and their statistical significance is worth nothing.
5. Know the difference between correlation and causation. Most headlines come from observational studies, which can only tell you if two things are linked—not if one causes the other. If you want to know whether A causes B, A treats B, A prevents B - the study has to be randomized, controlled, and well-powered.

Yes in 2025 excluding women from research is academic oversigh which has real, dangerous consequences. It leads to medical guidelines that are skewed toward men. It results in treatments that are less effective—or even harmful—for women. It leaves half the population navigating a healthcare system or health recommendations built on incomplete, male-centered data.

We’ve seen it before. Heart disease symptoms present differently in women, yet for decades, research focused almost exclusively on men, leading to misdiagnoses and worse outcomes for women. Drug dosages are often based on male metabolism, resulting in more severe side effects for female patients. Even seatbelts were originally designed using male crash-test dummies, leading to higher injury rates for women. Today's lifestyle literature is full of studies dedicated to men.

And no this isn’t about political correctness and ticking diversity boxes. It’s about scientific accuracy. When you exclude women, you don’t just fail women—you fail science and shortchange the truth. .

It’s International Women’s Day. Today, of all days, women have a voice. And it’s long past time to use it. Medical research that doesn’t include women has no place in robust science. Period.

If a study excludes women, it should be flagged as incomplete, limited, and not generalizable. If a study makes broad claims without accounting for sex differences, it should be challenged. Researchers must stop treating men as the default and women as an afterthought. We are half the population. We deserve half the science. And we won’t settle for anything less.