Latest news with #BiologyofSexDifferences
Daily Mirror
18-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Simple reason why women get worse hangovers than men - it's not what you think
If you think your tolerance for alcohol is worse than the men in your life, you're right - we ask the experts why ladies can't handle booze was well as lads... Men and women may look like they operate the same on the outside, but research shows we are very different when it comes to some things... from healing to heartbeats and even the amount we blink. Here are just a few ways that men and women differ in surprising ways... Men fall in love faster than women Despite their reputation for being the less romantic gender, a new study has found men fall in love twice as fast as women. A team of researchers quizzed more than 800 young people aged 18 to 25 in 33 countries who described themselves as being in love for a study in the Biology of Sex Differences earlier this month. They found that the men tended to fall in love about a month before women on average – over around four weeks, compared to two months for females. Not only did the men in the age group fall in love more quickly, they also reported falling in love more often: 2.6 times, compared to 2.3 times for women. Researchers have put the reason down to our hunter-gatherer past, when women had to be more careful about committing to a mate who would stick around to help care for their offspring. According to study author, biological anthropologist Adam Bode, from The Australian National University: 'Men will have fallen in love sooner than females because the male fitness landscape favours quantity of potential mates over quality, whereas the opposite is true for females.' Women get drunk more quickly We've all been through it. The throbbing headache. The dry mouth. The feeling you could throw up at any moment. But if after a heavy night your male partner feels back to normal sooner than you do, it's not because you've drunk more. It may be down to your gender. Research has found women feel the effects of alcohol sooner because they have much less of the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase in their stomachs, which breaks down alcohol before it enters the bloodstream. This means more alcohol, a toxin, enters the bloodstream unprocessed. The result is that women feel its effects more on their brains – and their livers have to work harder to process it. 'Females have only about one-fifth as much of this enzyme… so women literally get more effect, ounce for ounce, than men,' explains Columbia University's Dr Marianne Legato, founder of The Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine in New York. Women have hangovers for longer To make matters worse, women also suffer with hangovers longer. In 2003, researchers at the University of Missouri, US, surveyed over 1,230 students. Women complained of tiredness, dehydration, headaches, nausea, and vomiting more severely the next day than men who'd drunk similar amounts, and it took them longer to shake off symptoms. One reason is that as well as having less of the enzyme they need to break down alcohol, they also have smaller livers. This means their bodies have to work harder for longer to remove the alcohol from their systems. Psychologist Wendy Slutske, who led the research, says: 'This finding makes biological sense –women tend to weigh less and have lower percentages of body water. So they achieve higher degrees of intoxication and more hangovers per alcoholic unit.' Men's wounds heal slower than women's Cut your finger? If you're a man, you may find it takes longer to heal than a similar injury would for your female partner. This is because men have slower healing rates than women at all ages, according to a 2009 study in the Journal of Dermatological Science. One possible reason is that men's skin is around 20 to 25% thicker than women's. This means there is more skin thickness for the body to repair before a wound is healed fully. However, while men's wounds may take longer to heal, the downside is that women's skin ages faster, particularly after menopause. This is because men's skin is thicker due to the effect of the male hormone testosterone. This hormone helps give male skin a higher density of the elastin and collagen scaffolding that keeps skin firm – and this gives male complexions more resilience over time. By contrast, women owe much of their skin thickness, moisture and suppleness more to the effect of the female sex hormone oestrogen. When this drops off after menopause, it leads to a drop in collagen at a rate of about 2% per year, while men's collagen levels decline much more slowly. Combined with a thinner skin, this means women's skin is ageing faster by the time both genders hit their 50s. Men get hungry faster If your male partner complains he's already hungry while you're still full after your last meal, he's not just being greedy – he really does digest his food faster. Researchers have found that men's food moves about a fifth more quickly through their bodies than it does in women. Men's stomachs also empty faster because they have bigger volume and make more acid to break food down. According to gastroenterologists, it takes a woman around 28 hours to completely digest and excrete a meal, compared to around 24 hours for men. Women also have fewer bowel movements. Part of the reason is that women have a slightly longer colon than men, with an added 10 centimetres, so their food has to travel further. Research has also found that female sex hormones alter the make-up of the digestive bile – so women have fewer salts to dissolve foods compared with men. The female heart beats faster The heart has its own electrical system that sends signals telling it when to contract and pump blood. These signals originate from a group of cells in the right atrium, called the sinus node, the heart's pacemaker. The female heart is about two-thirds the size of a man's, weighing around 120g compared to 180g. However, because the female organ is smaller, it has to beat slightly faster to make up for it and distribute the blood around the body: 78 and 82 beats for an adult woman, compared to between 70 and 72 beats per minute for a man of the same age, according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research. According to the researchers: 'This is largely due to the size of the heart, typically smaller in females than males. The smaller female heart, pumping less blood with each beat, needs to beat at a faster rate to match the larger male heart's output.' Women blink more often and faster Every minute we blink repeatedly to spread optical fluids over the surface of our eyes to keep them moist. However, women tend to blink slightly more often and more quickly than men, around 19 times a minute for females versus 11 for males, according to a 2008 study in the journal Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics. Experts believe the reason is down to hormone differences, which contribute to the different make-up of this lubrication, which is made up of mucus, water and oil. According to eye surgeon Glenn Carp of the London Vision Clinic: 'Men have more testosterone which holds these tears together better and keeps their eyes well moistened.' Female hormones may be another reason women blink more. We don't know why but studies have found women blink the most when they are taking contraceptive pills containing oestrogen.
The Independent
05-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Lovestruck! Men are smitten before women are, study finds
Love may be a smoke made with the fume of sighs, according to William Shakespeare. But, it is men that inhale that smoke first, researchers say. While women obsess about their partner more than men, a first-of-its-kind study found that men fall in love slightly more often, and earlier, than women do. 'This is the first study to investigate differences between women and men experiencing romantic love, using a relatively large cross-cultural sample. It is the first convincing evidence that women and men differ in some aspects of romantic love,' Adam Bode, a Ph.D. student at The Australian National University, said in a statement. Bode was the lead author of the study which was published earlier this month in the journal Biology of Sex Differences. The authors said it was the first study to research the difference in romantic love between the sexes with people who described themselves as currently in love. To reach these conclusions, they analyzed more than 800 young adults who professed to be in love across 33 countries in Europe, North America, and South Africa. They used data from the Romantic Love Survey 2022: the world's largest dataset of 1,556 young adults experiencing romantic love. 'We're most interested in whether biological sex influences the occurrence, progression, and expression of romantic love,' Bode explained. They examined how many times they had fallen for another person, when they fell in love, the intensity of that love, how obsessed they felt with that person, and their commitment levels. Based on responses to these questions, they found that men fell in love an average of approximately a month earlier than women, but that women experience romantic love slightly more intensely and think about their loved ones more than men. Bode theorized that the month gap could be because men are 'more commonly required to show their commitment to win over a partner.' Nearly 40 percent of both sexes fell in love after forming a relationship, with 30 percent of men and 20 percent of women, respectively, falling in love before a relationship was 'official.' External factors also have a sizeable impact on falling in love. People living in countries with higher gender inequality, for example, fall in love less often, show less commitment and are less obsessed with their partners, generally speaking. "Romantic love is under-researched given its importance in family and romantic relationship formation, its influence on culture, and its proposed universality," says Bode. "We want to help people understand it."
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Men Tend to Fall in Love Faster Than Women, New Study Shows
It sets your heart racing, it puts butterflies in your stomach, and is a non-stop distraction for your mind – but that feeling we call love is something men fall into more quickly than women, according to new research. A team of researchers in Australia and New Zealand dug into survey data from 808 adults. The participants were aged between 18 and 25, and all described themselves as currently being in love. "The study spans across 33 different countries in Europe, North America, and South Africa," says biological anthropologist Adam Bode, from Australian National University (ANU). "We're most interested in whether biological sex influences the occurrence, progression, and expression of romantic love." The questions used in the study were comprehensive: they covered the timing and intensity of falling in love, the number of times the participants had fallen in love, and how obsessed they were with their partners. After some statistical processing, the data showed that the men tended to fall in love about a month ahead of the women on average – possibly because the onus is on men to show commitment to attract a partner, the researchers suggest. Men fall in love slightly more often than women do, according to the study, but are a little less committed. The women tended to spend more time obsessively thinking about their partner, and were slightly more romantically intense in their love. Men were also more likely to fall in love before the relationship had become 'official', with 30 percent of the male study participants reporting this timing compared to less than 20 percent of the women. "This is the first study to investigate differences between women and men experiencing romantic love, using a relatively large cross-cultural sample," says Bode. "It is the first convincing evidence that women and men differ in some aspects of romantic love." The team also ran the figures while accounting for extra factors that may influence our feelings of love, including age, and the ratio of men to women in the country of each participant. Most of the differences reduced but still held, though the differences in commitment disappeared. There were some interesting findings around gender equality too, with those in countries with higher gender equality falling in love less often, showing less commitment, and being less obsessed with their partners, broadly speaking. This suggests social norms also have an impact on our feelings of love, as well as the evolutionary pressures of needing to find a mate and keep our species alive – something the researchers are keen to investigate further. "Romantic love is under-researched given its importance in family and romantic relationship formation, its influence on culture, and its proposed universality," says Bode. "We want to help people understand it." The research has been published in Biology of Sex Differences. Legendary Female Free-Divers Reveal Evolution in Action on South Korean Island Here's How Long You Need to Form a Habit, And 8 Tips to Stick With It This Memory Technique Primes The Brain to Absorb More Information
Express Tribune
21-03-2025
- Health
- Express Tribune
Study finds sex-based brain differences present at birth and stable in early infancy
A new study published in Biology of Sex Differences has revealed that structural differences between male and female brains are present from birth and remain relatively unchanged during the first month of life, highlighting the significant role of prenatal biological factors in shaping early brain development. The research, conducted by scientists from the University of Cambridge as part of the Developing Human Connectome Project, analyzed brain scans of 514 full-term, healthy newborns — 278 boys and 236 girls — all within the first 28 days of life. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers found that male infants had larger overall brain volumes, a pattern that aligns with findings in older children and adults. However, after adjusting for total brain size, female infants were found to have more grey matter, the part of the brain responsible for information processing, while male infants had more white matter, which facilitates communication between brain regions. Lead author Yumnah Khan, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, said the findings challenge long-held assumptions that such sex-based differences in the brain are largely the result of social or environmental influences. 'Several on-average sex differences in the brain are already present from birth, indicating that prenatal factors play an important role in initiating sex differences in the brain,' Khan told PsyPost. Exploring structural brain differences The MRI scans revealed specific brain regions where the sexes differed. Female infants had relatively greater volumes in the corpus callosum, the bridge between the brain's hemispheres, and the parahippocampal gyrus, linked to memory. Meanwhile, male infants showed larger volumes in the medial and inferior temporal gyri, areas associated with visual and auditory processing. Notably, these differences remained stable throughout the first month of life, suggesting they were established before birth rather than shaped by early postnatal experiences. 'We found it very interesting that several of the sex differences that were previously observed in older children and adults were already present at birth,' Khan said. 'This emphasises that these differences are present from the very beginning of life and likely emerge prenatally.' Implications for neurodevelopmental research The findings have important implications for understanding why certain neurological and psychiatric conditions — such as autism, ADHD, and depression — occur more frequently or present differently in males and females. Researchers say these conditions may be linked to early structural differences in the brain, offering a potential pathway for earlier identification and targeted interventions. Khan emphasised that the interest in sex differences is not just academic, but also practically significant. 'A better understanding of sex differences, their underlying causes, and the timeline of their emergence can explain why certain disorders affect males and females differently. This may also help tailor diagnostic and support strategies to improve health outcomes,' she said. Caution against overgeneralisation Despite the findings, the researchers were careful to warn against overinterpreting the results. The differences observed are average differences across large groups and do not suggest that male and female brains are fundamentally or universally different in function. 'It is important not to overstate or exaggerate the differences,' Khan explained. 'The brain is not 'sexually dimorphic' like reproductive organs. The brains of males and females are more similar than they are different.' The study did not investigate whether the observed structural differences translate into behavioral or cognitive differences, nor did it explore the precise causes — whether genetic, hormonal, or environmental — of these early brain differences. 'There is still much more to uncover,' Khan said. 'We now need to determine whether these structural differences are linked to behavior, cognition, or future developmental outcomes. Understanding the origins and implications of these differences is the next critical step.' This research marks one of the most detailed investigations into sex differences in the neonatal brain, offering a foundational understanding of how male and female brains begin to diverge—if only slightly—from the very first days of life. It also adds to the growing body of evidence that biological sex plays a role in brain development from the earliest stages, long before social and cultural influences take hold.
