Why It Is More Difficult For Women to Stop Smoking
Despite it being a bad habit especially for the human health, many men and women nowadays are already addicted to smoking. In women smoking can make their breast nipples sag. It is also known that quitting smoking tends to be more difficult in women compared to men. Scientists believe that what causes this is because women’s brains react differently to nicotine.
Quitting smoking certainly gives many benefits for women, it was even known that prohibition of smoking lowers birth of premature babies.
According to scientists, the nicotine receptors in the brain – which bind nicotine and increase the habit of smoking – are expected to increase in number when a person smokes. The results of studies in men revealed that male smokers have more nicotine receptors compared to men who does not smoke. In the other hand, women smokers have nicotine receptors similar to female non-smokers.
“When you see them in accordance with the gender, you will notice a big difference,” said study researcher, Kelly Cosgrove, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, according to Live Science.
These findings are important because the primary treatment for those who want to quit smoking is nicotine therapy, like nicotine gum. According to Cosgrove, the results showed, for women smokers the benefit would be better if they use a treatment that does not involve nicotine, including behavioral therapies such as exercise or relaxation techniques, and drugs that do not contain nicotine.
Smoking elements that are not related nicotine such as smell and pretending to hold a cigarette likely have a big impact in improving the habit of smoking in women than in men.
In this study, Cosgrove and colleagues scanned the brains of 52 men and 58 women, most of them are smokers. The researchers looked at nicotine receptors in the brain using a radioactive marker that specifically binds the receptors whose primary job is to defend themselves from nicotine.
The smokers in the study, said Cosgrove, quit smoking for a week, so that their nicotine receptors can be bound by these markers to be photographed. The scientists found that male smokers had 16 percent more nicotine receptors in the brain area called the striatum, 17 percent higher in the cerebellum, and 13-17 percent more in the cortical are or the outer layer of the brain compared to men who do not smoke. In women smokers, by contrast, had almost the same amount of nicotine receptors in non-smokers in all parts of the brain.
Dr. Len Horovits, pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, agreed that more attention should be given to non-nicotine treatment. “You can replace all the nicotine you want, and people may still want to smoke,” he said. For example, smoking is a stress release for some people.
The reason for the differences associated with gender in this study is unknown. But the possibility it is related to progesterone levels. Hormone levels in women fluctuate depending on the menstrual cycle and are higher after ovulation. The study found progesterone levels associated with lower amount of nicotine receptors, the researchers said. There is a possibility that progesterone indirectly blocks the receptors.
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