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[Dr. Sinha speaking] Well women are different from men and
because drugs, each drug of abuse affects us differently.
When we take in food
or a drug it has to get processed and by the body.
So there's a difference in biology that
targets the drug what we call
pharmacokinetics or the dynamics of
breaking down the drug but also for the
drug to go into our bloodstream and then
to have its effects.
So men and women
differ in terms of the effects of each
drug acutely but then over time how it
affects them over time of use and how
much we use will be different for men and women, too.
Sex is a biological variable.
Our men and
women have different biologies our genes
are largely similar but they're also the
genes that are specific to our to our
gender or sex.
So it's a biological
variable it relates to biological
processes that represent us as being a
male or female.
Gender on the other hand,
is are more psychological and
psychosocial and cultural variables so
we use gender for those kinds of
measures, or thinking about outcomes that
would like to psychology or cultural
social cultural variables.
So thinking
about the effects of a drug on the body
that would be a sex variable on the
other hand if we start to think about
the rates of of abuse in men and women
and what may be influencing whether
women in fact will become addicted to a
drug versus men at higher rates are
lower rates we might look for gender
differences because they might actually
also be in addition to biology there
might also be cultural and social and
psychological variables.
So stress actually is is an integral
factor, we think in influencing risk for
addiction but also how we become
addicted and the reason for that is that
a lot of times people will use drugs to
change their mood.
This is commonly known and so men and
women would want to change them mood
differently sometimes women will often
be focused on emotional distress and so
they're very tied to their stress levels
and perhaps through that wanting to make
themselves feel normal again feel better.
Men on the other have a
propensity perhaps to feel good and
feel high, feel excited, feel aroused and
so they may be looking for a high.
All psychostimulants cocaine, opiates,
nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, all stimulate
or affect the biological stress pathway
which we have a hardwired stress pathway
in our bodies and brains to modulate
mood and also to alert us to danger and
respond to danger and to promote
survival and those pathways are actually
different for men and women and this is
why it's actually again important to
look for sex differences in men and
women in response to stress but also in
the interaction of why we take a certain
drug and then its effects on the stress
pathways.
What we're finding is that because we
have a different biology, because sex
plays an important role in pursuit of
showing some distinct ways in which
drugs affect men and women,there is
likely a different way in which
treatments… whether their behavioral
strategies or medications will impact
our brains to help us improve and cope
with addiction and recover from.
So
we believe actually that they're likely
will be different medications or
different strategies that will be
optimum for man vs for women.
The NIH has a new policy on on
considering sex as a biological variable
in the research that is being conducted.
I think it's a very important policy
because it allows us to understand the
biology more specific to the differences
in men and women.
It allows us to begin
to not only understand the biology to tailor our treatments and understand the
risk factors that may be affecting boys
and girls or men and women differently
we have not had that in all of the
diseases that affect us as humans.
This is a new turn what we are going to
end up having is data and science that
will specifically address whether it is
similar or different and in what ways
specific to women's health versus men's
health.
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