Lower iron levels in women due to menstrual cycles may offer a protective benefit against heart disease.

“you'd have to look at iron levels as a next interesting concept right so there's pretty interesting data in men that the more metabolically deranged they are the better they do with therapeutic phlebotomy whereas the less metabolically deranged they are the less of an effect they have by giving blood reducing the oxidative stress of iron so it might be the case that somewhere buried within there is this idea that because for a great number of years of a woman's life she is going to have less iron than a man due to her menstrual cycle that may actually offer a protective benefit against heart disease”