Cigarette addiction is higher in women because nicotine blocks the production of estrogen in their brains, according to researchers.
- In France, more than one in five women smokes daily according to the 2022 report of the National Committee against Tobacco.
- Tobacco is responsible for one in five deaths among women under 65, according to the Alliance Against Tobacco.
Quitting smoking would be more difficult for women and this is explained. Swedish researchers, including the study was presented at the annual meeting of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) in Vienna, discovered that the dose of nicotine contained in a single cigarette blocks the production of estrogen in the brain of women at the level of the thalamus – which is part of the limbic system of the brain.
A single cigarette is enough to impact the brain
This system, involved in behavioral and emotional responses, therefore becomes a target for addictive drugs, such as nicotine, according to the authors: “We were surprised to find that this effect could be observed even with a single dose of nicotine, equivalent to a single cigarette, which shows how powerful the effects of smoking are on a woman’s brain.”, explains Erika Comasco, senior researcher and associate professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.
In their experiment on a group of ten healthy female volunteers, the researchers found that a single dose moderately reduced the amount of aromatase, the enzyme responsible for estrogen production in the brain.
Tobacco: women are exposed to more risks than men
The women received a dose of commercially available nicotine intranasally and, at the same time, they were injected with an aromatase tracer. MRI and PET brain scans allowed the researchers to visualize both the amount of aromatase and its location in the brain.
This is the first time that such an effect has been demonstrated and this discovery could explain not only why women find it more difficult to quit smoking, but also why they are more likely to develop diseases linked to smoking, such as cancer of the lung and heart attacks.
But there are still unknowns:This finding leads us to believe that the effect of nicotine on estrogen production has a big impact on the brain, but perhaps also on other functions, such as the reproductive system – we don’t know yet.”, says Erika Comasco.