Not so long ago health seemed a unisexual theme.Bones, the heart, skin and other disorders, such as obesity, incontinence, sleep alterations and intolerance to pain seemed no different in men and women. However, more and more often studies unmask symptoms and conditions which are typical of the female population which clearly demonstrates that women' health is becoming a constant challenge.

For example, for each 100,000 women in Argentina over 50 years old, there are 298 hip fractures each year as opposed to 117 in males. This has been confirmed by six independent epidemiological studies concerning bone problems, by gender, carried out in Argentina during the last two years.

This data alone puts in evidence that the female bone structure is weaker, because 50% of women over 50 years suffer the partial loss of bone mineral density (osteopenia) or the condition of subnormal mineralized bone, and only 1 in 4 women will transit through menopause with a healthy skeletal system.

In Argentina the main female bone problems -with that gender's typical seal- are osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis. The first affects 1 in 3 women over 50 (almost one and a half million women are at risk of suffering a fracture due to a minimal traumatism) against 1 in 5 men. Rheumatoid arthritis attacks the female articulations three times more often that in men according to the Argentine society of Rheumatology.

But hormones also have a saying in the differentiation between men and women at the moment of tolerating pain. A study carried out in 2005 by researchers at the University of Bath, in England, concluded that women not only do they feel pain more easily than men but also have less capacity -than males- to tolerate it. For two reasons: psychological and hormonal. Women concentrate on the emotional aspects of pain (which tends to aggravate it) while men concentrate in the physical factors. Besides maternity trains women the innate manner of how to recognize and support pain.