A Gender-Specific Nutritional Approach to Women’s Healthcare

Abstract

Despite women’s low inclusion in disease studies and acceptance of men’s results as universal, gender dichoto my shown in puberty/adolescence with girls’ fat accumulation vs. boys’ fat reduction suggests major metabolic differences and potentially related risk factors and diseases. Women’s evolution for reproduction and fetal/infant nourishment, with a historical advantage vs. scarcity, is now increasingly counteracted by the obesogenic environment. This corroborates recent decline in their healthy life expectancy (LE) and the female-male LE gap. Their higher lifelong body fat% compared to men’s, even with the same BMI, suggest it is metabolically more relevant than BMI; lower abdominal (high risk) fat utilization during weight loss diets; and higher sedentary risks vs. exercise benefits, suggest they need differential strategies against obesity. Premenopausal estrogen protection against abdominal obesity and related metabolic diseases, such as MetS, diabetes, CVD, inflammation, and cancer – that are delayed until menopause but accelerated with later suggests a differential time perspective for intervention. Women’s higher sensitivity to Western trends, including a sedentary lifestyle and obesogenic and high glycemic diet, further emphasizes the urgent need for a gender-specific nutritional approach to women’s care, particularly during critical lifecycle periods. This chapter presents some characteristics of women’s differential risk factors that could support gender nutrition within the PPPM approach.