TY - JOUR TI - Reporting and misreporting of sex differences in the biological sciences AU - Garcia-Sifuentes, Yesenia AU - Maney, Donna L A2 - Allison, David B A2 - Zaidi, Mone A2 - Vorland, Colby J A2 - Kahathuduwa, Chanaka VL - 10 PY - 2021 DA - 2021/11/02 SP - e70817 C1 - eLife 2021;10:e70817 DO - 10.7554/eLife.70817 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.70817 AB - As part of an initiative to improve rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research, the U.S. National Institutes of Health now requires the consideration of sex as a biological variable in preclinical studies. This new policy has been interpreted by some as a call to compare males and females with each other. Researchers testing for sex differences may not be trained to do so, however, increasing risk for misinterpretation of results. Using a list of recently published articles curated by Woitowich et al. (eLife, 2020; 9:e56344), we examined reports of sex differences and non-differences across nine biological disciplines. Sex differences were claimed in the majority of the 147 articles we analyzed; however, statistical evidence supporting those differences was often missing. For example, when a sex-specific effect of a manipulation was claimed, authors usually had not tested statistically whether females and males responded differently. Thus, sex-specific effects may be over-reported. In contrast, we also encountered practices that could mask sex differences, such as pooling the sexes without first testing for a difference. Our findings support the need for continuing efforts to train researchers how to test for and report sex differences in order to promote rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research. KW - meta-research KW - sex inclusion KW - sex differences JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -