Rethinking prevention through a gender lens Alyson J. McGregor, MD, MA shares how sex-specific data are redefining Lifestyle Medicine – and why University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville is building the model. When researchers began disaggregating cardiovascular outcomes by sex, one finding stood out: women who adopted lifestyle-based interventions – structured changes in nutrition, physical activity, sleep, and stress management – experienced an even greater reduction in cardiovascular risk than men following the same protocols. The female body, it appears, may be particularly responsive to lifestyle modification. Yet for decades, the evidence behind those interventions was built almost exclusively on male subjects.
Alyson J. McGregor (2026) studied this question.