Shake off the pain? We can't. Turns out, even nature favours the men. And no, it is not about emotions
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Shake off the pain? We can't. Turns out, even nature favours the men. And no, it is not about emotions")
Science has an answer to the age-old question - Why women feel pain for longer than men? Photograph: (Unsplash)
Why do women suffer more pain and for a longer time than men? It has nothing to do with their strength or emotions. Turns out, the human body is such that men are naturally at an advantage when it comes to pain, and women can't do anything about it.
Pain lasts longer for women than men; this is a fact scientists have known for a long time. However, the exact reason for this has remained unclear. Scientists have attributed it to psychological, emotional or social factors. But science hasn't really looked into why women continue to feel pain when it subsides in a man much before them. When pain remains for more time than it should, it turns chronic, and this is something that needs to be dealt with. A new study has shed more light on the problem and states that the reason pain lasts longer in women is because of their immune system. A paper in The Conversation by neuroimmunologist Geoffroy Laumet suggests that immune cells are critical to helping pain resolve, and “differences in how these cells function between men and women may influence how quickly pain goes away.”
Hormones help ease pain more quickly in men
Laumet and his team set out to understand why women continue to be in pain long after the injury has healed. They combined data from experiments done on mice with that of people who had been in motor vehicle collisions. The researchers focused on a molecule called interleukin-10 that helps reduce inflammation. They found that this molecule not only calms inflammation, but also communicates with pain-sensing nerve cells to shut them down. But it behaved differently in males and females. In men, immune cells called monocytes were more likely to produce IL-10, but the same did not happen for women. The researchers also found that their production was linked to testosterone levels - the more testosterone, the higher the production of IL-10. This means that biology favours men while pain maintains a chokehold on women.
Immune system and pain
Laumet says that the finding shows that the immune system needs to be viewed as a key player in resolving pain. While the study focused on men and women, differences in immune cell function could also be why some people recover more quickly than others, irrespective of sex. The finding can help invent new treatments that work to boost the body’s own pain resolution system. The study can help prevent and treat chronic pain and better understand how pain differs based on sex.
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