Testosterone assists men in coping with pain

Everybody knows that men cope with pain better than women.
Men’s hormone testosterone is the best natural analgesic giving males this advantage.

British scholars from University of Physiology and Behavior of Animals in Prinstone conducted a research on sparrows. Male sparrows were injected with different doses of testosterone, and the time of their reaction on pain was measured. “We poured hot water onto the birds’ paws and watched how soon the birds felt pain to take the paws aside”, said the director of the experiment professor Michaela How. The birds produced slow reaction to the temperature below 51°С, but they reacted to higher temperatures much quicker.

After testosterone was injected to birds, their tolerance to pain grew bigger. They could tolerate the temperature above 52 degrees. When the birds were injected the medicine blocking the impact of testosterone, their tolerance to pain increased, and the sparrows started producing reactions to the temperature 48°С. Scientists think that testosterone produces sequence of reactions in one’s organism, producing natural analgesics.

Rodger Phillingim, specialist on pain from the University of Florida, says that testosterone produces similar reaction in human organism. According to him, this hormone is a natural analgesic, and in future a new medicine can be produced on testosterone’s basis. This medicine would replace narcotics for people suffering from frequent pain.

Anastasia Golitsyna