The Women's Health Research Institute has teamed up with North American leaders to advocate for sex inclusion in basic research. Teresa K Woodruff, PhD, director of WHRI, and Melina R Kibbe, MD, WHRI Leadership Council member and vascular surgeon have joined nine other academic leaders in sex based medicine on an opinion piece entitled Sex inclusion in basic research drives discovery. Published in the April 2015 edition of PNAS the article reinforces why sex inclusion is one of "most underappeciated differences in biomedical research". It addresses the objections that have been made against inclusion of females in preclinical research by naysayers who are resisting a more equitable policy.
While most of the discussion on this topic has revolved around biological sex differences, this article begins the discussion of the complex interdependency of sex and gender in animal research.
This article emerged from a workshop held at Stanford University in September 2014. Besides Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, the other authors represent John Hopkins, Stanford U, U of California Irvine, U of Toronto, Georgia State, U of Maryland, McGill U, U of California Berkeley.
We need a certain amount of fat in our diets to stay healthy. Fats provide needed energy in the form of calories. Fats help our bodies absorb important vitamins—called fat-soluble vitamins—including vitamins A, D and E. Fats also make foods more flavorful and help us feel full. Fats are especially important for infants and toddlers, because dietary fat contributes to proper growth and development.
Current e-cigarette use among middle and high school students tripled from 2013 to 2014, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). Findings from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey show that current e-cigarette use (use on at least 1 day in the past 30 days) among high school students increased from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 13.4 percent in 2014, rising from approximately 660,000 to 2 million students. Among middle school students, current e-cigarette use more than tripled from 1.1 percent in 2013 to 3.9 percent in 2014—an increase from approximately 120,000 to 450,000 students.
We are well aware that cigarette smoking has a direct link to lung cancer. Did you know that the latest Surgeon General's report identified 21 other diseases that have a causal relationship to cigarettes?
In the last few weeks, we saw the Rolling Stone retract a highly read article about an alleged gang rape at the U of Virginia that raised a lot of questions about the ethics of journalism. In short, many of the accusations posed by the reporter were not backed up by facts and in the end cast a dark cloud over the university and the fraternities that were involved. Theconversation.com, an online news source written by academics and scholars, posted an article by Ivan Oransky, an associate professor at New York University, and Adam Marcus, that asks whether or not journalism should use the scientific method with its rigourous investigation, questioning of evidence, testing and revised hypotheses as a good model for self-correction. This article also takes a look at the scientific method itself and whether or not it, too, has some shortcomings and is vulnerable to human biases. 
Equal Pay Day is finally here! Equal Pay Day (April 14, 2015) is the symbolic day when women's earnings catch up to men's earnings for the previous year. The most recent data shows that on average for every dollar paid to a man, a woman receives 78 cents. That is one penny more than the statistic women have been stuck at for the past decade and this gap is of course even wider for women of color! 
While rare, breast cancer does affect women under the age of 45. In young women, the disease is more often hereditary than it is in older women. Young women, however, may not realize they are at risk for this disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new Bring Your Brave campaign will feature young women telling their personal stories about how their lives have been affected by breast cancer. The goals of the campaign are to motivate young women to learn about the disease and its prevention, learn their family history of cancer, and engage in conversations with their health care provider.
Teen childbearing can carry health, economic, and social costs for mothers and their children. Teen births in the US have declined, but still more than 273,000 infants were born to teens ages 15 to 19 in 2013. The good news is that more teens are waiting to have sex, and for sexually active teens, nearly 90% used birth control the last time they had sex. However, teens most often use condoms and birth control pills, which are less effective at preventing pregnancy when not used consistently and correctly.
As we learn more about sex differences, it is easy to understand why both men and women need to be included in clinical research. But why does the sex of a cell used in basic research matter? Cell lines and primary cells are often used by basic scientists in proof-of-concept experiments and when trying to figure out how biological mechanisms work. These early findings help provide valuable clues for developing new drugs, treatments and diagnostic models that eventually can be applied to humans. 
National STD Awareness Month is not just a reminder for young folks. Older adults, including senior citizens, need to pay attention to the messages. According to the CDC, between 2007 and 2011, chlamydia cases among Americans 65 and older increased 31% and for syphilis 52%. These percentages are similar to those in the 20- to 24- age group.