New Study Sheds Light On Why Women Experience More Chronic Pain Than Men

"Men's immune systems may have a better system for shutting down pain because of their higher testosterone levels. Researchers asked 245 participants who had experienced traumatic injuries to rate their pain levels over 84 days. While the men and women in the group reported roughly the same levels of pain on the day the injury happened, as a whole, the men's cohort started feeling better much faster than the women's."

"Researchers compared those pain rankings to the participants' bloodwork, which showed the men had notably higher levels of interleukin-10. IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory immune signaling protein that essentially tells the brain to switch off the pain signals it's sending out. And as one of the lead researchers told NBC, testosterone increases the production of IL-10 in the body."

"Because men have higher levels of testosterone naturally, their immune systems may just be more efficient at shutting off pain signals after injury. You and your husband may have been in the same car crash, but you're not being dramatic because your neck still hurts daily and his stopped weeks ago."

Research from Michigan State University reveals a biological explanation for why women suffer from chronic pain more frequently than men. In a study of 245 trauma patients, men and women reported similar pain levels immediately after injury, but men's pain decreased significantly faster. Analysis of participants' bloodwork showed men had notably higher levels of interleukin-10, an anti-inflammatory protein that signals the brain to suppress pain. Testosterone increases IL-10 production, giving men a more efficient biological mechanism for pain signal suppression. This finding explains previous research indicating women experience pain more intensely and accounts for the 70% of chronic pain patients being female despite 80% of pain studies involving only male subjects.

Read at Scary Mommy