Why Women Are Getting Sicker Younger
And how to receive the body as a gift—even when it's broken
For context, this essay is a response to Claire the Catholic Feminist’s piece, “Why Are Women So Sick?” I wanted to respond when it first came out in 2023, but I was, well, too sick…1
As a bioethicist who studies the ethics of women’s health and a sufferer of chronic illness—one of the 26 million American women in “fair or poor health” in the US—I’d like to add to Claire’s initial thoughts on the state of women’s health and why we seem to be so disproportionately affected by heart disease, osteoporosis, migraines, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune disorders, and other chronic conditions.
Environmental Toxins
First, the crunchy MAHA movement is growing quickly for a reason (and not just because of Alex Clark’s masterful internet crusading). It should be no secret that many of our everyday cleaning and beauty products are laced with carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting chemicals.2 Women are disproportionately represented as consumers of these products—everything from cosmetics to skincare to cleaning products. Even antiperspirant is more problematic for women; men’s body hair prevents an equal degree of absorption of the aluminum in these products, which has been shown to contribute to bone disease and Alzheimer’s.
Even our food products are filled with chemicals that have not been properly tested, but grandfathered in as “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS)—meaning that food additives in the United States are essentially innocent until proven guilty. This is a great policy in a court of law, where the intent is to protect innocent people. When it comes to food production, we need to protect people—not a corporation’s bottom line.
Women’s “Health”
A second factor is the field of women’s health, specifically the “treatments” of hormonal contraceptives and abortion. Since the introduction of the hormonal birth control pill, the field of gynecology has skewed towards prescribing it for almost any female complaint, from painful periods to PMS to acne. But the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists itself argues that the menstrual cycle should be recognized as “the fifth vital sign.”3 If something is off with a woman’s cycle, that is an indicator of something amiss in the system that should be addressed in its own right.
Despite this widespread knowledge, women’s health providers continue to prescribe the pill as a band-aid that targets symptoms rather than heals the underlying causes. (By contrast, restorative reproductive medicine provides options for seeking genuine healing.)
But the pill doesn’t just mask symptoms; it can wreak a havoc of its own. The documented side effects are many:
In addition to these well-documented side effects, hormonal contraceptives cause pervasive brain changes and obscure symptoms that, left untreated, can lead to infertility, such as PCOS, hormone imbalances, and endometriosis.
The realm of women’s “health” can be damaging to women not just through hormonal contraceptions, but also via the physical and psychological risks of abortion. (For more, check out the documentary Hush or my articles at Crisis: Abortion Is the Real Assault on Women, and Word on Fire: Women Deserve Better Than Abortion).
Inequitable Research
Finally, the state of medical research is such that women are highly underrepresented. Some of this can be attributed to bias. Women are not just “small men.” Some 80% of drugs that are pulled from the market are due to unanticipated side effects in women—because they weren’t included in the original safety studies.
This could be avoided by including more women in research studies. The complicated truth is that women are not as easy to study as men are—both scientifically and ethically. From a medical standpoint, men’s bodies are more consistent. They have fewer variables than women, whose cyclical state leads to differing hormonal balances at different times of the month. This complicates studies by introducing more variables.
Studying women is more ethically complex because cycling adult women may become pregnant during the course of a study. Because of laudable concerns for protecting the unborn (and potential liability and further confounding of the research with fluctuating hormones), it is best practice to avoid testing on women who may become pregnant.
Selecting only women who are not sexually active is unlikely to be a representative sample (and requiring abstinence as a prerequisite for participation might dissuade otherwise willing participants). Participants may not honestly disclose their sexual activity to researchers. The easy solution in research is to study only women who are taking hormonal contraceptives—meaning that women are rarely, if ever, studied in an unadulterated state.
This apparent “inequity” stems largely from the fact that men and women are biologically and relationally different. Women have an incredible capacity that no men will ever have (not for lack of trying). The gift of this endowment comes with the pesky side effect of making us less appealing lab rats.
I’ll take the trade off.
So what can we do to improve women’s health outcomes?
First, we can make better choices as consumers while advocating for healthier, nontoxic options of the products we already love (I list my favorite nontoxic products in my forthcoming book, Grow Where You’re Planted, but you can instantly receive a downloadble version with links when you preorder.) We can avoid hormonal contraceptives and opt for more natural ways to monitor fertility, such as the Natural Cycles App or Temp Drop. We can continue to raise awareness about NaPro technology and other options in restorative reproductive medicine for women’s health and infertility issues.
As for the inequity in research, I am not sure there’s a better option given the obstacles explored above. If you have ideas, I am all ears.
The good news is that men don’t win in every category. We still beat men in overall longevity; while we do suffer more chonic conditions, men’s ailments tend to be more deadly. We also suffer half the rate of heart disease and lower rates of autism and kidney stones.
Finding Meaning in the Suffering
In the comments section of December’s link roundup, Olivia Murphy asked:
“If God shaped each of us intentionally, how do we see the gift when our bodies aren’t functioning how we wish them to?”
This is such a beautiful and important question, one that I am still mulling over myself, and may take up in another edition of this newsletter. For now, I want to highlight someone else’s words that have inspired me this week.
Elizabeth Kulze of Momosophy shared her thoughts in response to Olivia’s question:
I cannot answer for others who have suffered different bodily ailments from myself, but something I believe after having struggled with infertility and other mental and physical health issues is that God uses my body to lead me toward the version of myself I need to become in order to lead the life that I’m here to lead.
It’s precisely through trusting in this and surrendering to my reality, instead of doing all I can to resist it, that my body is usually able to heal.
The body isn’t a gift because of its functions and capacities alone. It’s a gift because it’s the place God can actually reach us, whether to guide us toward a higher form of health or even just to be with us in our brokenness.
While we obviously want to seek healing when it is available, we may also find an invitation to deeper intimacy with Christ when it is not. I am currently reading Offer It Up: Discovering the Power and Purpose of Redemptive Suffering by Blessed Is She’s Megan Hjelmstad. In it, she shared the powerful witness of how she has journeyed with Christ through her chonic illness. She distills all the philosophical and theogical wisdom I received via higher learning institutions into beautiful and easily understood passages with helpful everyday metaphors. I highly recommend diving it whether or not you personally suffer from chonic illness; the book is a prayerful invitation to grow closer to the Lord through the mystery of suffering.
Are you or a loved one struggling with chronic health conditions? How have you found hope and healing?
AMDG,
Samantha
I was actually at the worst of my struggle with autoimmune disease, which I discussed recently on Danielle Bean’s podcast and wrote about in my forthcoming book, Grow Where You’re Planted. For the curious, I’ve also written a quick summary of how I healed.
There is a list of my favorite nontoxic products in my forthcoming book, Grow Where You’re Planted, which is now available for preorder.
Lisa Hendrickson-Jack has a great book on this.
All I can say is that having 3 children with Type 1 Diabetes (and therefore dependent upon insulin for their very survival) - and myself with LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes Adult-Onset) - also dependent upon insulin to a lesser degree - I have become more aware and accepting of our dependence on God, which for me has been a good thing, albeit a hard thing. My children, having received their diagnoses before I received mine, have always been an inspiration to me for their courage, particularly my two who were diagnosed at the tender age of 2 1/2.
Thanks Samantha for such valuable information on the threats to women’s health. I’m glad you also mentioned that men definitely fare worse than women when it comes to longevity. I’m wondering if this discrepancy would become more equal if the products and medical treatments that you point out affect women’s health, and the environmental and psychological threats that disproportionately affect men were reduced. I think we’d see both sexes living longer and healthier lives. Once again, thanks for your insightful article.