The standard human body that biology supposes exists, does not exist.
The perfect human cadaver does not exist, there’s no cadaver that follows the models in books. All cadavers have weird shaped organs, in kinda weird spots, not symmetrical, little tumors and tendon issues and muscle issues etc. Same for their neurochemicals including hormones (and fyi people can get adrenal autoimmune disease later in life that can cause changes in sex features). Same for genes. Like especially genetically, we know everyone has different genes because that’s how DNA tests work in forensics.
No one is the standard and this is why many medical studies are super shitty and our medicine is so nonspecific. That’s why firstline treatment for depression is SSRIs even though they only have a 30% efficacy.
So the idea that “control” groups in medical studies are really made up of some kind of standard body is pure nonsense, unfortunately. They do not even investigate for hormones or other diseases really during these medical studies. If the drug itself will impact sex hormones, the study will describe what tests they ran and will investigate then, but if it’s a depression drug or heart drug etc, they just go off whatever the patient thinks. Genuinely. Our studies are so primitive.
The standard human body that biology supposes exists, does not exist.
The perfect human cadaver does not exist, there’s no cadaver that follows the models in books. All cadavers have weird shaped organs, in kinda weird spots, not symmetrical, little tumors and tendon issues and muscle issues etc. Same for their neurochemicals including hormones (and fyi people can get adrenal autoimmune disease later in life that can cause changes in sex features). Same for genes. Like especially genetically, we know everyone has different genes because that’s how DNA tests work in forensics.
No one is the standard and this is why many medical studies are super shitty and our medicine is so nonspecific. That’s why firstline treatment for depression is SSRIs even though they only have a 30% efficacy.
So the idea that “control” groups in medical studies are really made up of some kind of standard body is pure nonsense, unfortunately. They do not even investigate for hormones or other diseases really during these medical studies. If the drug itself will impact sex hormones, the study will describe what tests they ran and will investigate then, but if it’s a depression drug or heart drug etc, they just go off whatever the patient thinks. Genuinely. Our studies are so primitive.