ReviewClinical therapeutics2021
A Narrative Review of Sex Differences in Eating Disorders: Is There a Biological Basis?
Review in Clinical therapeutics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Review on Diabulimia: Exploring the Intersection of Disordered Eating, Eating Disorders, Insulin Dose Manipulation, and Type 1 Diabetes.Current diabetes reviews · 2026Pooled it
- The collateral effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: A gender-specific systematic review of disordered eating behaviour in the general population.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2025Pooled it
- Daily Ovarian Hormone Exposure and Loss of Control Eating in Adolescent Girls: A Stage 2 Registered Report.The International journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Clinical Phenotypes and Neurobiology of Youth With Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) Across Sex.The International journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Women's eating disorder origins as responses to childhood trauma and negative social self: a qualitative study exploring lived experience perspectives.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Bulimia nervosa.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2026Review
- Sex-specific patterns of avoidant and restrictive eating in inflammatory bowel disease: validation of the German version of the Nine Item Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake disorder screen (NIAS).Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Examining the effects of two dietary intervention approaches on disordered eating-related thoughts and behaviors in adults with moderate to moderately severe depressive symptoms.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Article
- Stress modulates gastric interoception depending on eating traits and emotion regulation: evidence from the magic table.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sex-Specific Responses to Intermittent Fasting: A Narrative Review Across Physiological, Clinical, and Psychosocial Contexts.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Why does FND mainly affect women? A consideration of gender imbalance in neuropsychiatric disease.Psychological medicine · 2026Review
- Starving for Data: Eating Disorders Prevalence and Research Gaps in Southern Africa.The International journal of eating disorders · 2026Review
- The relationships between hoarding-related behaviours and disordered eating in a non-clinical adult sample: an exploratory study.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Relationship between obsessive personality traits and eating disorders.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2026Article
- Behavioral-Gastrointestinal Interaction Between Night Eating Syndrome and GERD Among Saudi Adults: Implications for Clinical Screening and Lifestyle-Based Care.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Screening for Eating Disorders in Psoriasis Patients: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study.Psoriasis (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Externalizing as a common genetic influence for a broad spectrum of substance use and behavioral conditions: A developmental perspective from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- Utilising genomic association data for causal inference in anorexia nervosa.Mammalian genome : official journal of the International Mammalian Genome Society · 2025Review
- Assessing schema modes for eating disorders and their association with personality traits: validation of the English version of the short form of the schema modes inventory for eating disorders (EN-SMI-ED-SF).Journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeEating disorders and their core symptoms (eg, binge eating, body weight/shape concerns) disproportionately affect females, and these sex-differentiated effects become prominent during and after puberty. Although psychosocial influences such as heightened sociocultural pressures for thinness in girls and women contribute to this sex imbalance, biological factors could also play an important role.
methodsThis narrative review summarizes evidence of biological factors underlying the sex-differentiated prevalence of eating pathology as well as within-sex variability in risk.
findingsThere are sex differences in the pubertal emergence of genetic effects on eating pathology (adrenarche in males; gonadarche in females), and at least some genetic contributions to eating pathology seem to vary between the sexes. Furthermore, sex steroid hormones (eg, testosterone, estradiol, progesterone) are leading contributors to differential risk for eating pathology in males and females across the life span. Emerging data suggest that between-sex and within-sex variability in risk might occur via hormone-driven modulation (activation/deactivation) of genetic influences and neural responsiveness to food-related cues. IMPLICATIONS: There is a biological basis to heightened risk for eating pathology in females, relative to males, as well as unique biological influences within each sex. Findings from this review highlight the importance of studying both sexes and considering sex-specific biological mechanisms that may underlie differential risk for eating pathology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.