Why are women addicted to smoking more than men?

United States – Scientists from the United States have made a strange discovery that women are more susceptible to addiction to smoking cigarettes than men.

The female sex hormone estrogen may be the reason why women are more likely to become addicted to nicotine than men, which may open new avenues for treatment.

The new study data indicate that women generally become dependent on nicotine after being exposed to it less than men, and therefore have more difficulty quitting smoking.

Researchers from the University of Kentucky in the United States decided to investigate this disparity among smokers and soon discovered that it may be related to hormones.

The team, led by PhD student Sally Baus, found that estrogen stimulates the expression of olfactomidine, a type of protein involved in the brain’s processing of reward and addiction.

It has been proven that nicotine inhibits olfactomidine, which means that the interaction between estrogen, nicotine, and olfactomidine may be the reason why women suffer more from addiction.

Baus said she hopes the new discoveries, published in the Journal of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, will open doors to new treatment possibilities that will help women stop smoking.

She added: “Our work hopes to understand what makes women more vulnerable to nicotine use disorder, in order to reduce gender disparities in nicotine addiction treatment.” Our findings have the potential to improve the lives and health of women suffering from drug abuse. If we can confirm that estrogen drives nicotine seeking and consumption through olvactomidine, we can design drugs that may prevent this effect by targeting the altered pathways. “We hope that these medications will make it easier for women to quit nicotine.”

The research team studied genes that interact with estrogen to find out which ones have a hormonal function in the brain.

They found that only one class of genes met these criteria, those coding for olactomidines, which prompted them to perform a series of tests to better understand the interactions between olactomidines, estrogens, and nicotine.

The results of tests, conducted on human uterine cells and mice, indicated that estrogen activation of olactomidine, which is suppressed in the presence of nicotine, may act as a “feedback loop” to stimulate nicotine addiction processes.

“It is possible to do this by activating reward circuit areas in the brain,” Baus explained.

Now the team plans to conduct further studies that definitively determine whether estrogen contributes to nicotine addiction.

Researchers are also seeking to understand how the signaling pathways regulating olvactomidine work, particularly in relation to how they stimulate nicotine consumption. This knowledge will be useful for women, especially for those who take estrogen in pill form or through hormone replacement therapy.

Source: Metro