Women’s Health in Flux: Training Gaps, Research Setbacks, and Breakthroughs

✨ Happy Saturday!

If you’re wondering what’s moving (and what’s stuck) in women’s health this week, you're not alone. We’ve got new research on training gaps, some whiplash around funding for one of the biggest women’s health studies ever, and some good news on food allergy research.

It’s messy, it's promising — and it’s exactly what keeps me curious.

Here’s what’s inside this week’s issue:

• 🔎 Female Sexual Dysfunction: Why medical training still falls short ➔

• 🔎 WHI’s Funding Fight: What’s been saved — and what’s still at risk ➔

• 🔎 Allergy Research Breakthrough: New cells, new possibilities ➔

And it’s back….the what keeps me curious list.

Let’s dive in.

🔎 Female Sexual Dysfunction: Still Underdiagnosed and Undertreated

A national survey of resident physicians found alarming gaps in training on female sexual health.

• Only 23% reported training in clitoral examination.

• Just 38% had any training on diagnosing hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD).

• Most felt uncomfortable diagnosing and managing female sexual dysfunction (FSD) at all.

Why it matters:
If doctors aren't taught how to recognize and treat FSD, women continue to face misdiagnosis, dismissal, and lack of care. Systemic gaps in education directly translate into real-world harm for patients.

➡️ Read the full study here

🙌🏼 Let’s Talk: Do you talk to your doctor about your sexual health questions or concerns or do you wait for your doctor to ask? Let’s discuss on the Slack channel. Haven’t joined yet? Learn more about the Slack Community.

 🔎 WHI’s Future: Caught in Back-and-Forth Funding Decisions

The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is one of the largest and longest-running research studies focused on women’s health. Since the 1990s, WHI has tracked over 160,000 women to uncover critical insights about cancer, heart disease, bone health, and aging. Its findings have directly shaped clinical guidelines — for example, dramatically changing how hormone therapy is prescribed for menopausal women, leading to an estimated 126,000 fewer breast cancer cases and billions in healthcare cost savings.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) informed WHI investigators that funding for WHI’s Regional Centers would be terminated by September 2025, with the Coordinating Center to follow January 2026, according to this report by the WHI.

This news sparked widespread concern among researchers and public health advocates. Losing WHI’s active data collection — and potentially its ability to maintain its biorepository and longitudinal data — could cripple one of the most valuable women’s health resources ever created.

Then, just days later, HHS seemingly reversed its decision. After public outcry and national media coverage, HHS announced that funding would be restored to ensure continuity of WHI’s research.

But:

• As of Friday, April 25, WHI’s own website still warns that funding for key operations remains uncertain.

• Formal written confirmation of the restored funding had not yet been received by the WHI teams at the time of their last update.

Why it matters:
The WHI story highlights just how fragile women’s health research funding remains — even for landmark projects that have saved lives and reshaped medical practice.
It also exposes the broader instability facing research programs when large, politically driven budget cuts ripple through federal agencies.

Without clear and consistent support, even the best science can be sidelined.

🙌🏼 Let’s talk: Head to the Slack channel and tell us what you know about WHI funding (or lack thereof). Haven’t joined yet? Learn more about the Slack Community.

🔎 Allergy Breakthrough: Discovery of Immune Cells that Prevent Food Allergies

Researchers at NYU Langone identified a specialized type of immune cell — called tolerogenic dendritic cells — that help the body tolerate harmless substances like food proteins and friendly gut bacteria.

Key discoveries:

• These cells require two specific proteins (RORγt and Prdm16) to train T cells not to overreact.

• Mice without these cells were more likely to develop food allergies and asthma.

• Early human tissue analysis suggests similar cells exist in people, but more research is needed.

Why it matters:
Understanding how the immune system is trained to tolerate (not attack) harmless substances could open entirely new paths for treating food allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases like Crohn’s.

If scientists can figure out how to enhance or repair tolerogenic dendritic cells, it could shift the way we treat — or even prevent — allergic and autoimmune conditions.

And remember, since autoimmune diseases and inflammatory conditions disproportionately affect women, understanding immune tolerance better could have major implications for women's health in the future.

➡️ See the research here