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The Lëtzebuerger Journal is already celebrating its second digital birthday. We have found our place in the media landscape, evolved and are ready for 2023. None of this would be possible without the people who tell us their experiences and perspectives. To mark the occasion, each team member has chosen a contribution whose story has stuck with him or her this year.
More than ever, our digital magazine allows us to focus on stories that receive little or no coverage in other media. Because we are committed to putting the human at the centre of our concerns. For me, it is a question of shedding light on the forgotten people of the Luxembourg economic miracle. Those whose daily life does not reflect the abundance praised in international rankings.
There are also those who have been forgotten by medical research. The half of the population that is still too often considered a copy of the standard model, the alpha male. Through two articles, one dedicated to the menopause and the other to the management of women suffering from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), one thing is clear. Medicine has only too recently become aware that women deserve better than to be a human subclass, that hormonal changes are not just an inconvenience in medical studies, but a real factor to be taken into account in various treatments.
The meeting with Dr. Sandra Kooij, a psychiatrist who came specially from the Netherlands, was a highlight this year. In a study she conducted herself, she discovered that the hormonal cycle has a strong influence on ADHD symptoms in women. Only two years ago. A discovery that could change the lives of millions of women around the world. But it was still necessary to care about them.
"Medicine has only too recently become aware that women deserve better than to be a human subclass, that hormonal changes are […] a real factor to be taken into account in various treatments."
The same goes for my article on the menopause. As long as women are fertile, doctors are interested in them. Once this period is over, there's nothing to see. This stage of life, as pivotal as puberty, is swept under the carpet. At a conference in Luxembourg, Dr Rouguiatou Sow, a cardiologist at the CHL, presented some hard-hitting figures: no, heart attacks do not only happen to overweight men in their fifties. Menopausal women are massively affected. The cause is always those pesky hormones that play a key protective role. At the menopause, these hormones disappear and women are more exposed to cardiovascular risks.
With the initiatives of doctors who are trying to move the lines, solutions are emerging. We are now talking more easily and on a larger scale about "women's" problems. Because that is also what we are trying to do at the Journal, to highlight solutions to move forward. Together.
