Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-277) and index.

Introduction: What is gender medicine? -- Sex, gender, and personalized medicine -- Life in the womb--Part one -- Life in the womb--Part two -- Emotional stress during pregnancy -- Gender aspects of heart disease -- The digestive tract : gender aspects -- Our intestines : the second brain and the life within the gut -- Gender aspects of the reproductive system -- Gender aspects of infertility -- Gender aspects of pain -- Too hot, too cold : gender aspects of temperature regulation -- Men : the weaker sex -- Are men an endangered species? -- Gender aspects of doctor-patient relationships -- Gender medicine : future directions.

"Over millions of years, male and female bodies developed crucial physiological differences to improve the chances for human survival. These differences have become culturally obsolete with the overturning of traditional gender roles. But they are nevertheless very real, and they go well beyond the obvious sexual and reproductive variances: men and women differ in terms of digestion, which affects the way medications are absorbed. Sensitivity to pain is dependent on gender. Even the symptoms of a heart attack manifest differently in a man than in a woman. And yet the medical establishment largely treats male and female patients as though their needs are identical. In fact, medical research is still done predominately on men, and the results are then applied to the treatment of women. This is clearly problematic and calls for a paradigm change--such a paradigm change is the purpose of Gender Medicine." --