Sex differences in type 2 diabetes: an opportunity for personalized medicine.

For decades, most research in the laboratory and clinical settings focused primarily on males. However, more recently, grant-funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, have prioritized research that studies both males and females. This has dramatically improved our understanding of how biological sex impacts whether a person is at higher risk for developing a particular disease and what treatment options may be best to achieve the healthiest outcomes. This article offers the perspectives of practicing physicians and scientists on how our knowledge about biological sex may impact disease incidence, progression, treatment options, and outcomes in obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The piece will offer a broad overview of the current science and personalized medicine approaches in these areas. It then discusses gaps in our knowledge and proposes several questions to guide future research.