Musings on Calcium Chocolate Supplements
When I was young, I was told to get plenty of calcium. I religiously downed my daily glass of calcium and vitamin D-enriched orange juice in the mornings. Would never forget to take my calcium chocolate supplements after dinner — one for me, one for my mom. My grandma has osteoporosis, and my mom always warned me I’d probably get it too when I was older. Asian women, she said, tend to get this disease.
I was raised by a biologist and a housewife, and we’ve always held much faith in science. When I told my dad that I was going to be working with Women’s Health Research at Yale, he was skeptical.
“Gender differences?” he scoffed. “You mean you’re going to be one of those people who demand I include female mouse models in my research?”
To my father, including sex differences is just an additional box to check off when submitting a grant for review. And to a certain extent, I thought he was right. Why consider sex when researching wound healing in mouse models? We don’t even know the mechanism for wound repair for mice in general. Does it really matter if a mouse is male or female?
What I’m quickly learning: Yes. It does.
I’ve always been curious about the differences that exist between men and women. As a former Women’s Studies major, I learned early on that people only study topics that are deemed “important.” Historically, this has included nefarious scientific studies that justified racism. But more discreetly, this framework also led biomedical research as a field to primarily benefit those who had the privilege of studying it — namely, white men.
That foundation still underlies and shapes research today. Though women have made much headway and contributed many great achievements in recent decades, women are still a minority in science. Scientific models are presumed male and often exclude female subjects. This creates an environment in which including female models can become a mere token gesture, the importance of serving female bodies is diminished, and the practice dwindles down to a tedious checkbox on my dad’s papers.
When we don’t have research purposefully investigating female biology and psychology, women are expected to squeeze into scientific and clinical molds that may not benefit us.
Growing up Asian American, I’ve gotten pretty used to not expecting representation in news and entertainment media. Anything I saw in the mainstream, I knew I could somehow squeeze myself into the one-size-fits-all portrayal of an American teen, who was usually depicted as white and wealthy. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear about the same problem occurring in the field of research. I’m not expecting studies specifically on Asian women, but the fact that most studies don’t even consider sex or gender as a factor influencing health boggles my mind. What am I supposed to do when I’m expected to squeeze my physiology into one of a man’s?
Taking the same symptoms and mechanisms that are known for males and applying them to female patients without a scientific basis for doing so is what leads to misdiagnosis and distrust between patients and doctors. Representation and data aren’t one-size-fits-all, and they shouldn’t be treated that way.
This goes beyond research and is reflective of our social institutions. I’m excited to begin working with Women’s Health Research at Yale because I know that I’ll be supporting and working with a team of people who are fixing this status quo and are dedicated to revolutionizing research. Research should serve the public. And this includes women, specifically women of color.
I think about my ritual of taking calcium every day, knowing that it’s because scientists purposefully researched the effect of calcium on female bodies. If the women in my family took calcium so seriously because we knew we were vulnerable to developing weak bones, what else could we have focused on? What could we be researching purposefully for women, so we might better prevent and treat diseases and conditions? It’s up to us, up to current and future researchers like myself, to learn more about our bodies so that we can make more informed choices about our health.
