ArticleeLife2021
Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 139 papers, 6 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
139 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Sex bias consideration in healthcare machine-learning research: a systematic review in rheumatoid arthritis.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Association of interleukin-6 with sarcopenia and its components in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies.Annals of medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Multivariate Models of Animal Sex: Breaking Binaries Leads to a Better Understanding of Ecology and Evolution.Integrative and comparative biology · 2023Pooled it
- Neuroimaging Investigations of Obesity: a Review of the Treatment of Sex from 2010.Current obesity reports · 2023Pooled it
- Sex differences in pharmacological interventions and their effects on lifespan and healthspan outcomes: a systematic review.Frontiers in aging · 2023Pooled it
- Demographic reporting across a decade of neuroimaging: a systematic review.Brain imaging and behavior · 2022Pooled it
- Claims of sex-dependent effects in the behavioral and brain sciences are infrequently supported by valid statistical comparisons.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- XYomics: detecting sex-dependent molecular mechanisms in omics data.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Intensity and exposure proximity as determinants of differential stress-related health outcomes.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Observational
- Twenty years of sex and gender science in health research: a policy statement from the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences.Biology of sex differences · 2026Review
- The problem with one-size-fits-all medicine: Biological sex and the aging immune system.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Hypocretin receptor 1 blockade early in abstinence prevents incubation of cocaine seeking and normalizes dopamine transmission.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Aged murine bone marrow myeloid and mesenchymal cells develop unique senescence phenotypes.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Article
- Protein nanoparticles assemble in plants, display antigenic viral peptides, and produce an epitope-specific immune response.The FEBS journal · 2026Article
- Cefepime Alleviates Comorbid Pain and Depression Induced by Lipopolysaccharide in Female Mice.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- The "sex-specific effect:" Evaluating analytical approaches to sex-dependence in the behavioral and brain sciences.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Redesigning medicine: integrating sex and gender for better health outcomes.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Review
- Persistent impairment of spatial hearing and neural binaural interaction after "temporary" noise-induced hearing loss.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Checking assumptions: advancing the analysis of sex and gender in health sciences.Biology of sex differences · 2026Review
- The contribution of age and sex hormones to female neuromuscular function across the adult lifespan.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
79 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
As part of an initiative to improve rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research, the U.S. National Institutes of Health now requires the consideration of sex as a biological variable in preclinical studies. This new policy has been interpreted by some as a call to compare males and females with each other. Researchers testing for sex differences may not be trained to do so, however, increasing risk for misinterpretation of results. Using a list of recently published articles curated by Woitowich et al. (eLife, 2020; 9:e56344), we examined reports of sex differences and non-differences across nine biological disciplines. Sex differences were claimed in the majority of the 147 articles we analyzed; however, statistical evidence supporting those differences was often missing. For example, when a sex-specific effect of a manipulation was claimed, authors usually had not tested statistically whether females and males responded differently. Thus, sex-specific effects may be over-reported. In contrast, we also encountered practices that could mask sex differences, such as pooling the sexes without first testing for a difference. Our findings support the need for continuing efforts to train researchers how to test for and report sex differences in order to promote rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.