Women prone to upper body maladies.

• Position: Musculoskeletal System

Women are at least twice as likely as men to develop musculoskeletal disorders of the upper body, indicate the findings of scientists at Ohio State University, Columbus, who reanalyzed data from 56 previous studies on the subject. This gives researchers a critical baseline for comparing gender differences in the prevalence of disorders of the neck, shoulders, arms, and hands.

Until now, some researchers suspected that women only appear to have a higher incidence of these disorders because they are more likely than men to admit that they are in pain and get treatment. Others thought the sexual difference was due to a greater exposure to certain risk factors for women.

Delia Treaster, a former doctoral student at Ohio State, conducted this research with Deborah Burr, assistant professor of epidemiology and biometrics. When they accounted for factors such as a person's age, occupation, and whether an individual reported the disorder themselves or whether it was clinically diagnosed, they were surprised to find that the gender difference still remained.

"Any way you slice the data, women have a significantly higher prevalence-anywhere from two to 10, even 11 times higher than men--for many of these disorders," Treaster notes. "The question now is, why? Is it biomechanical, physiological, psychological, or what? Most likely, it is due to a combination of factors."

...