Smoking is of course fundamentally unhealthy. But it may also have a different effect on men and women. A study now shows at least how nicotine consumption affects women in particular. It influences a certain hormone – possibly with serious consequences.
There has long been evidence that smoking affects women differently and probably more seriously than it does men. This also means that they find it harder to quit smoking.1 Against this background, researchers at Uppsala University (Sweden) have now carried out a study with women and found that even the consumption of a cigarette is associated with a clearly negative effect on their hormonal balance.
How did the study go?
The Swedish researchers, who have now presented their results at the “ECNP Congress” in Vienna, worked with ten healthy subjects in their study. They were given a commercially available dose of nicotine through their noses and injected with a radioactive tracer to see what was happening in the women’s bodies. This tracer is attached to a molecule, which in turn attaches itself to the enzyme aromatase. Aromatase, also known as estrogen synthase, is an enzyme responsible for the production of the hormone estrogen. Injecting the tracer and performing MRI and PET scans allowed the scientists to visualize both the amount of aromatase and its location in the brain.2
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Effect of a cigarette on estrogen production in women
It was shown that even a single dose of nicotine leads to a reduction in the amount of estrogen in the brain of women. “For the first time we can find that nicotine turns off the mechanism of estrogen production in the brain of women,” said study leader Erika Comasco. “We were surprised to see this effect from a single cigarette-equivalent dose of nicotine, showing just how powerful the effects of smoking are on a woman’s brain.”
The scientists have demonstrated this effect in a very specific region of the brain: in the thalamus, which is part of the limbic system and is involved in behavior and emotional reactions. “We’re not sure yet what the behavioral or cognitive consequences are. We only know that nicotine affects this area of the brain, but we have found that the affected brain system is a target for addictive substances like nicotine.”
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limitation of the study
The head of the study herself points out that the study is a small research project with a small number of subjects. However, it is noteworthy that nicotine has been shown to affect the sex hormone estrogen and the brain. Further and more extensive investigations are now necessary to confirm the current result and to understand it even more precisely.
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Possible far-reaching consequences for women
The research team from Sweden believes it is possible that the effects of cigarettes and nicotine on estrogen production in women might have far-reaching consequences – for example on their reproductive system. Perhaps the current study result might also be a first step towards explaining why women appear to be more resistant to nicotine replacement therapy than men, have more relapses, show a greater susceptibility to the heritability of smoking and have a higher risk, primarily through Smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer and Heart attack to develop.3,4
