Men and Women Process Pain Differently
Synthetic opioid drugs, such as morphine and fentanyl, are the most powerful class of painkilling drugs available. But they also carry a significant risk of dependence and addiction, especially for women. A recent study from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine shed light as to why that might be when they found that men and women use different biological systems to manage chronic lower back pain. Researchers reported that men rely on the release of endogenous opioids—natural painkillers produced by the body—while women use non-opioid pathways to relieve pain. This difference helps explain why women tend to respond poorly to opioid-based pain medications like morphine or fentanyl, which bind to the same receptors as the body’s natural opioids. Therefore, women may need higher doses of these drugs for relief, potentially increasing their risk of addiction. In the study, 98 participants, including healthy individuals and those with chronic pain, underwent meditation training and then practiced it while being exposed to painful but harmless heat stimuli. Researchers blocked the opioid system using naloxone, which stops both natural and synthetic opioids from working, to see how it affected meditation-based pain relief. They found that blocking the opioid system with naloxone stopped meditation-based pain relief in men, suggesting that men rely on endogenous opioids to reduce pain. Conversely, naloxone increased meditation-based pain relief in women, suggesting that women rely on non-opioid mechanisms to reduce pain. In both men and women, people with chronic pain experienced more pain relief from meditation than healthy participants. According to the researchers, the findings clearly show sex-based differences in pain processing. Because women may benefit more from non-opioid therapies, a sex-specific approach could lead to better pain management and reduced reliance on opioids.
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