Sex- and gender-aspects in regard to clinical practice recommendations for pre-diabetes and diabetes

Metabolic diseases dramatically affect life of men and women from infancy up to old age and are a major challenge for clinicians. Health professionals are confronted with different needs of women and men. This article aims at an increase of gender awareness and the implementation of current knowledge of gender medicine in daily clinical practice with regard to prediabetes and diabetes. Sex and gender affect screening and diagnosis of metabolic diseases as well as treatment strategies and outcome. Impaired glucose and lipid metabolism, regulation of energy balance and body fat distribution are related to steroid hormones and therefore impose their influence on cardiovascular health in both men and women. Furthermore, education, income and psychosocial factors relate to development of obesity and diabetes differently in men and women. Males appear to be at greater risk of diabetes at younger age and at lower BMI compared to women, but women feature a dramatic increase of their cardiometabolic risk after menopause. The estimated future years of life lost owing to diabetes is somewhat higher in women than men, with higher increase of vascular death in women, but higher increase of cancer death in men. In women pre-diabetes or diabetes are more distinctly associated with a higher number of vascular risk factors, such as inflammatory parameters, unfavourable changes of coagulation and blood pressure. Pre-diabetic and diabetic women are at much higher relative risk for vascular disease. Women are more often obese and less physically active, but may even have greater benefit from increased physical activity than males. Whereas men predominantly feature impaired fasting glucose, women often show impaired glucose tolerance. A history of gestational diabetes or the presence of a PCOS or increased androgen levels in women, on the other hand the presence of erectile dysfunction (ED) or decreased testosterone levels in men are sex specific risk factors for diabetes development. ED is a common feature of obese men with the Metabolic Syndrome and an important predictor of cardiovascular disease. Diabetic women also feature sexual dysfunctions much more frequently than non-diabetic women which should be addressed in clinical care. Several studies showed that diabetic women reach their targets of metabolic control (HbA1c), blood pressure and LDL-cholesterol less often than their male counterparts, although the reasons for worse treatment outcome in diabetic females are not clear. Furthermore, sex differences in action, pharmacokinetics, and side effects of pharmacological therapy have to be taken into account.