(자아성장) MailOnline: 여성은 호르몬에 민감하기 때문에 남성보다 정서적 스트레스 잘 받는다

출처: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1286817/Women-prone-emotional-stress-men-sensitivity-hormone.html

Women more prone to emotional stress than men 'because of sensitivity to hormone' 여성은 호르몬에 민감하기 때문에 남성보다 정서적 스트레스 잘 받는다

By FIONA MACRAE FOR THE DAILY MAIL 
UPDATED: 07:05 GMT, 16 June 2010

Ladies, you may want to take a deep breath before reading on.

Because, according to scientists, women really are ruled by their hormones.

Members of the fairer sex are more sensitive to a key stress hormone - with even small amounts sending their emotions into a whirl, research shows.

Men, in contrast, are relatively immune to even high amounts of the chemical.

The new research focused on a hormone that organises stress responses in mammals. It found females were more responsive to it

This perhaps explains why they often take a more laid-back view of potential crises - infuriating the women in their lives in the process.

Researchers say the U.S. study could help explain the differences in the way men and women control their emotions.

Women have higher rates of depression,post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety problems than men.

However no one has yet been able to pinpoint a biological reason for the difference.

The study focused on a stress hormone called corticotropinreleasing factor (CRF) which helps control the body's reaction to stress.

CRF is known to play a role in human psychiatric conditions.

Study leader Dr Rita Valentino, of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said: 'This is an animal study carried out on rats and we cannot say that the biological mechanism is the same in people.

'But researchers already know that CRF regulation is disrupted in stress-related psychiatric disorders, so this research may be relevant to the underlying human biology. This may help to explain why women are twice as vulnerable as men to stress-related disorders.'

In the study, brain cells of female rats were excited by doses of CRF that were too low to affect cells in male rats, the journal Molecular Psychiatry reports.

Experiments showed that the hormone bound more tightly to brain cell proteins of stressed-out female rats, making them more sensitive to its effects. The male rats, however, were able to reduce levels of the protein, stopping the hormone from binding and reducing its effects on the brain.

Since much of the previous animal research on stress used only males, important sex differences may have gone undetected, hampering the development of effective drugs for women. 

'Pharmacology researchers investigating CRF antagonists (blocking agents) as drug treatments for depression may need to take into account gender differences at the molecular level,' said Dr Valentino.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1286817/Women-prone-emotional-stress-men-sensitivity-hormone.html#ixzz45RDyx6L1 
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