If you really want to know what makes a woman unique, ask her physician. You may be surprised to learn how significant a role gender plays in health issues. Although women have a longer lifespan than men, they are at greater risk for many diseases.

Here are a few facts about women's health you may not realize:

• Heart disease kills more women each year than it does men. Women are also more likely than men to have a second heart attack within a year of the first one.
• Since 1987, lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Twenty percent of women with lung cancer have never smoked, compared to 10 percent of men.
• Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in women.
• Depression is two to three times more likely to affect women than men.

Women are also more likely than men to experience side effects or adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to medications. This holds true for prescription as well as over-the-counter medicines, supplements and herbal remedies. One reason women experience ADRs more frequently than men is that they take more medications than men. Women also metabolize drugs at different rates than men, making them more susceptible to drug-related reactions.