Prolactin and Pain Threshold in Women: Oral Contraceptives Can Reduce Pain
Imagine taking the birth control pill and getting rid of your migraines at the same time. As it turns out, this is possible! Researchers in the Health Sciences Department of the University of Arizona have identified a mechanism that explains why women are more sensitive to pain than men, and what can help.
Darya
Women feel pain more
The cause of the increased sensitivity to pain is the neurohormone prolactin, known mainly for promoting lactation after childbirth.
It has often been believed that women experience less pain than men. This is supposedly designed by nature so that women can give birth and not die of pain shock. This has never been clinically proven.
Scientists did an experiment on mice of both sexes, some of which were stimulated to release prolactin. The brains of females reacted several times sharper to the pain signal after prolactin release than the brains of females without stimulation and both groups of males. The findings suggest that new pain treatments targeting prolactin suppression would be of great benefit to women suf...
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