Study on Y chromosome's history suggests sex-specific health treatments in future

Article here. Excerpt:

'A detailed genetic analysis of the Y chromosomes of a wide range of mammalian species, including humans, shows that far from continuing to wither away unremittingly, it has remained remarkably stable for at least the past 25 million years.

The research also found that the few remaining genes on the Y chromosome include some that perform vital regulatory control of other genes that are active throughout a man's body - making each of his cells distinctly and subtly different from those of a woman.

This would suggest that medical treatments should in future be tailored more towards a patient's gender, and that doctors may have more reason to treat men and women differently according to their sex, said Professor David Page, director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"There is a clear need to move beyond a unisex model of biomedical research, which means we need to move beyond a unisex model of our understanding and treatment of disease," said Professor Page, who led one of the research teams.'