While heart disease and stroke are the #1 and #4 killers of Alabama women, respectively, women are largely underrepresented in clinical studies about cardiovascular disease. A local researcher is trying to change that with her work.
Dr. Eman Gohar of the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the American Heart Association (AHA) in 2015. Thanks to funds raised by donors for the American Heart Association, the organization provided Dr. Gohar with over $88,000 to conduct her research and more than $10.3 million total to research facilities in Alabama last year.
Dr. Gohar's AHA-funded study examines how high blood pressure triggers differ between sexes and whether treatments for high blood pressure should be different based on the sex. Through her work as a researcher, Dr. Gohar has seen an inequality in the number of women involved in clinical studies as opposed to men.
"My research has taught me that signaling mechanisms involved in the regulation of blood pressure are sex-dependent. We should not be conducting research only in men and assuming that women are the same," Dr. Gohar said.
As a female researcher, Dr. Gohar says she believes it's critical to close the gap between gender disparities in cardiovascular research.
"Studying sex differences in blood pressure is a central goal of my research," Dr. Gohar said. "Our current national guidelines recommend the same therapeutic treatments for men and women suffering from high blood pressure. I hope my research will contribute to changing our guidelines, and I want it to encourage physicians and other researchers to consider gender in treatment of high blood pressure and other heart-related diseases."
Dr. Gohar says the American Heart Association plays a key role in solving issues around gender disparity in research.
"We, as researchers, have important questions that need to be addressed with the ultimate goal of building healthier lives. The American Heart Association, by funding research, is helping to answer these questions and help train a new generation of scientists who can complete the mission of the AHA," Dr. Gohar said.
Unfortunately Dr. Gohar's experience with gender disparity in research has been seen across the nation. Most heart disease research today is done on men, and many inequities between the genders remain. Only 35% of the participants in cardiovascular clinical research studies are women, and just 31% of these studies report the outcomes by gender.
Women have different symptoms than men, and require different medical treatment. If heart disease research continues to be skewed to male physiology, women will continue to be put at risk for less prevention, incorrect diagnoses, misinformed treatments and death from their #1 killer, which claims the lives of more women than all forms of cancer combined.
That's why the American Heart Association supports the Research for All Act, which will eliminate these inequities by requiring the National Institutes of Health to develop guidelines that include female subjects in basic research. This bill will save lives. The American Heart Association has made it easy for you to help speed the passage of this legislation. Just click the link to let your Representative know you want this bill passed.
Dr. Gohar at UAB is one researcher who is making an impact on this critical issue. She says she hopes more will be done to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
"I believe that through research, we can help others. Together, we can build a better, healthier future," Dr. Gohar said.