These search results are surprising; 1% of genetic association study publications in either PubMed or Web of Science report anything related to sex differences in their searchable text and an even smaller proportion consider the sex chromosomes. The extremely low percentage of reported sex differences underscores the lack of attention to this subject in human genetics, and highlights the need for future studies to not only include sex as an important biological variable, but also report the result within the searchable text (i.e., title/abstract/keyword). To be fair, it is likely that sex differences are considered more often than are being reported in the literature. Unpublished results due to publication bias remain an unaddressed problem in science, and this ultimately contributes to wasted time and money. Not reporting sex differences, even if null, presents the same problem in that it restricts information that can be useful for other scientists.
