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What about sex?

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Sex as a biological variable influences almost all aspects of health and disease, yet many research studies use only males or do not consider sex differences. We describe why sex-specific reporting is needed, including in basic and animal research, and we outline recommendations for sex-specific reporting in manuscript abstracts, Methods and Results sections, tables and figures.

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Fig. 1: Recommendations for sex-specific reporting.
Fig. 2: Example figure with sex-specific reporting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Computational Biology, Department of Quantitative Health Science, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Stacey J. Winham

  2. Mayo Clinic Specialized Center of Research Excellence, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Stacey J. Winham & Michelle M. Mielke

  3. Division of Epidemiology, Department of Quantitative Health Science, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Michelle M. Mielke

  4. Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Michelle M. Mielke

Authors
  1. Stacey J. Winham
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  2. Michelle M. Mielke
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Correspondence to Michelle M. Mielke.

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Competing interests

M.M.M. has consulted for Biogen, Brain Protection Company and LabCorp. S.J.W. declares no competing interests.

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Winham, S.J., Mielke, M.M. What about sex?. Nat Metab 3, 1586–1588 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-021-00503-7

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