Pharmaceuticals

Health issues affect men and women differently

The differences between men and women run deep. Very deep. Right down to the level of what goes on inside the billions of cells that make our bodies tick.

But the world of medical science, which you'd think would be on top of this, has been somewhat slow to recognise it.

For decades, most health research has been based largely on human studies of men only, or of male lab animals.

It wasn't done to deliberately shut out women and their differences.

What you should do with expired and unwanted medicines

Not only are these out-of-date and no-longer-required pharmaceuticals taking up space, they are also potentially dangerous.

"The ingredients may not be active, so they might be ineffective or could potentially make you sick," said Toni Riley from the Return Unwanted Medicines national scheme, aka the RUM Project.

"The active ingredients can go off easily.

"Medicines are designed to be stored in specific temperature conditions and most of our homes don't comply with that and where people keep their medicines is not ideal."