Treatment Online

Amphetamines May Effect the Sexes Differently
> 4/13/2006 1:56:10 PM

New research by doctors working at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has revealed that men and women respond to amphetamines differently. Using PET scanning technology, professor of endocrinology Gary Ward, M.D. found that the brains of men released three times the amount of dopamine after using amphetamines as those of females who took the same drug.

Ward was quoted as saying, ""These appear to be the first clinical studies whose results may help explain why we see a greater number of men abusing amphetamines than women."

According to SAMHSA 6 percent of men and 3.8 percent of women illegally used amphetamines in 2004. Certainly, as Wand points out, this new research provides a plausible explanation for this discrepancy. But before anyone puts this data into the text books, this new study has yet to be published (it is slated to appear in the July issue of the Journal of Biological Psychiatry). Subsequent experimentation will reveal if these results will hold up to scrutiny. Wand's sample size was small (28 men and 15 women) which will only add fuel to any criticism. Nevertheless, these results are interesting, and should provide a great starting point to what could become an important discovery in the fight to better understand drug addiction.

Comments

No comments yet.