Study ends age-old debate over whether men or women tolerate pain better

What’s worse: a kick in the groin or giving birth?

Men and women have long debated which gender can handle pain better, but research appears to have answered that question.

Research over the past decades has shown that women experience pain noticeably more often than men. Many researchers suspect that this has to do with different hormone levels.

Testosterone, which is found in higher amounts in men, curbs pain by determining how the body recognizes and communicates pain, discomfort, and other chronic pain.

Yet the answer may lie in more than just biology, researchers say. They have found that stress, childhood trauma, depression and anxiety can also worsen pain.

“The biological processing of pain, regardless of how much pain is caused, is dramatically dependent on gender,” Jeffrey Mogil, a professor of psychology at McGill University, told The hill.

‘In both sexes, different genes are used, different proteins, different cell types and in both cases a completely different biology.’

Women often claim that childbirth makes them more resistant to pain than men, but the opposite is true.

Hormones play a crucial role during childbirth. Endorphins, adrenaline and oxytocin are produced more often. It is thought that these substances make women less sensitive to pain and that their bodies function normally again after childbirth.

According to a June report studyProlactin, the hormone women use to produce breast milk, increases the sensory receptors in the body that process pain.

Researchers at the University of Arizona have identified functional sex differences in the nerve cells that produce pain, called nociceptors.

Nociceptors are activated when someone is injured. They cause a reaction that makes people move away from the source of danger. Think of placing your hand on a stove or feeling the painful sting of a jellyfish.

The study did not find that pain is worse in men or women, but it did find that nociceptors are different in men and women, Dr. Frank Porreca, director of research at the Comprehensive Center for Pain & Addiction and lead author of the study, previously told DailyMail.com.

Men’s testosterone levels contribute to a higher pain threshold than women

But research has shown that pain is not just about nerve receptors and hormone levels. According to Diane Hoffmann, director of the law and health care program at the University of Maryland Law School, pain is “multifactorial,” she told The Hill.

Stress, depression and anxiety have all been linked to worsening pain, while childhood trauma may increase people’s chances of developing chronic pain later in life, a 2001 study found. study revealed.

All four problems were found to be more common in women than in men, further demonstrating that women’s pain threshold is lower than men’s.

“You can’t just look at the biological and physiological,” Hoffmann told the outlet. “You have to look at that in combination with not just the psychological impact, but also the social and cultural impact and how that affects a person’s experience of pain.”

The studies could help researchers develop drugs specifically targeted at treating women and men separately.

“This offers the opportunity to treat pain specifically and potentially better in men and women, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Dr. Porreca said.

The existing approval of orexin receptor antagonists by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of sleep disorders would make it easier to prevent nociceptor sensitization.

“We apply the concept of precision medicine, where we take into account the patient’s genetics to design a therapy, to the treatment of pain,” Dr. Porreca added.

“The most fundamental genetic difference is: is the patient male or female? Maybe that should be the first consideration when it comes to treating pain.”