A HEADLINE in one of the national papers caught my eye last week: Women spend quarter of lives in poor health.

According to research by Public Health England, between 2014-2016 women in England spent an average of 23.2 per cent of their lifespan – or 19.3 years - suffering ill health, compared to an average of 16 years for men.

Why is this happening? A large part of the answer lies in the inequalities of our healthcare system. For so long now women’s health needs have been ignored and poorly understood.

This begins at the medical research stage when new drugs are tested solely on male laboratory animals. Female animals are excluded because their reproductive cycles may confuse the results! Once human trials are underway, the gender bias continues, with women vastly under-represented. This causes higher levels of side-effects and inaccurate dosages for women once the drug goes to market.

Public health advice is frequently based on male symptoms; a good example of this is the advice about spotting signs of heart disease. Central chest pain that radiates down the left arm, right? Yes if you’re male, probably not if you’re female!Women are much less likely to have these symptoms and as a result, often have cardiovascular problems misdiagnosed. Their symptoms are described as being atypical when in fact they are simply different to male symptoms and need to be recognised as such.

When it comes to specific female health issues like painful periods and menopausal symptoms, women still get a raw deal. Even with all the advances in modern healthcare, there is little to offer beyond antidepressants and hormone therapies, and women are left to battle on, scared to speak out for fear of being judged and seen as unable to cope.

Is it any wonder then that the majority of complementary healthcare users are female? Longer consultation times allow women to fully express their concerns, and treatments based around nutrition, herbs, acupuncture, or touch therapies like massage offer a drug-free way to support the whole body.

This biased approach is slowly shifting but more needs to be done. Especially if we want to spend less than a quarter of our lives in poor health.

Sally Duffin is a registered nutritionist (MBANT). Find her online at nutritioninyork.co.uk or join the Facebook group Nutrition in York.