Recent comments in /f/askscience

rosewonderland t1_j1gyibg wrote

Reply to comment by FlatPineappleSociety in Which medical procedures have a different application when treating a woman or a man? by ViejoOrtiva

So, two of these only are a problem if a transguy is pregnant. That's extremely rare since they usually take hormones that make that impossible.

For the urinary catheter: they might prepare the wrong one, but they'd realise they'll need the other after one second of looking, so I doubt that would actually be much of a problem.

Abdominal pain can have multiple causes, so their origin are often only found after imaging and a full work-up anyway.

So, imo, giving EMTs a one or two hour "awareness lesson" during training would be enough to avoid all of this. That's not enough of a reason to not allow people to correct their gender on their birth certificate.

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ViskerRatio t1_j1gls5w wrote

Reply to comment by Lyndeead in Are people who live in certain climates less susceptible to the effects of the weather there? by dxrknxrth

> Body shape

Due to the impact of nutrition it's tough to get a good data set for this. However, the tallest people in the world are generally Northern Europeans or those descended primarily from Northern Europe (cold weather climates). The shortest people in the world are from warm climates in South and Southeast Asia. Africans are about in the middle.

> body hair distribution is larger in colder climates compared to populations in hot climates.

Body hair on human beings does not play any meaningful role in temperature regulation so there wouldn't be any evolutionary pressure. I don't care how glorious your chest hair is, you're not walking across the Northwest Territories naked in winter.

This also doesn't pass even the most cursory examination. Amongst Caucasians, the hairiest tend to be Mediterranean and Semitic peoples from temperate climates while the least hairy tend to be Northern Europeans from cold ones. Indians (from the scorching sub-continent) are notoriously hairy while Koreans (from the freezing Korean Peninsula) are amongst the least hairy people on the planet.

> skin melanin content

This is a common explanation, but the same sort of mechanism/evidence problems emerge.

UV protection does not seem to have any meaningful purpose here. Diseases such as melanoma that strike people with pale skin more often do not generally emerge until well after childbearing years. Sunburns, while unpleasant, can be easily avoided through the use of clothing and shelter. Moreover, it's fairly easy to get a sunburn even in deep winter if you spend a great deal of time outdoors without any protection.

Vitamin D is more likely to be the culprit. However, the main input to Vitamin D production is not climate but the amount of time spent indoors. The relatively minor variation in sunlight due to the angle of the sunlight is dwarfed by the massive variation in lifestyle of primarily indoors groups vs. primarily outdoors ones. At best you could argue that people in cold climates are more likely to spend their days indoors.

Skin color also correlates poorly with temperature. While we tend to have a simplistic "Sweden cold, Africa hot" notion, if skin color was meaningfully correlated with cold weather we'd expect tribes of pale-skinned people at high elevations in Africa. We'd also find it unusual that cold weather Koreans were considerably lighter than warm weather Indians.

I'm curious if there's really any scientific foundation for your points - it seems like the sort of assumptions the eugenicists used to make about race.

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_Oman t1_j1ghgff wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Which medical procedures have a different application when treating a woman or a man? by ViejoOrtiva

You are incorrect about mammograms. While men can get breast cancer, mammograms are generally not recommended for them because of the relatively low occurrence rate and that fact that they are designed for larger breast tissue mass. However, that may not apply to the transitioned population (both directions). It depends on a number of factors and should be discussed with a medical professional.

Some sauce for those that are curious:

https://transcare.ucsf.edu/guidelines/breast-cancer-women

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_Oman t1_j1ggk97 wrote

Reply to comment by die_kuestenwache in Which medical procedures have a different application when treating a woman or a man? by ViejoOrtiva

I was going to say this, as this one is a biggie for on-scene triage. I do wonder if there has been any study to see if hormonal therapy to accompany transition has any impact on reported symptoms of heart related issues.

** Since we are on the subject **

PSA: Women do not generally experience the same symptoms when in the early stages of a heart attack as men do. This is directly from the Mayo Clinic:

Women are more likely than men to have heart attack symptoms unrelated to chest pain, such as:

Neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or upper belly (abdomen) discomfort
Shortness of breath
Pain in one or both arms
Nausea or vomiting
Sweating
Lightheadedness or dizziness
Unusual fatigue
Heartburn (indigestion)

These symptoms may be vague and not as noticeable as the crushing chest pain often associated with heart attacks. This might be because women tend to have blockages not only in their main arteries but also in the smaller ones that supply blood to the heart — a condition called small vessel heart disease or coronary microvascular disease.

Compared with men, women tend to have symptoms more often when resting, or even when asleep Emotional stress can play a role in triggering heart attack symptoms in women.

Please take these symptoms seriously. Women are more likely to die from a heart attack than men.

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