Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Who feels more pain? Men or Women?

It was previously thought that the reason women appear to experience more pain then men was correlated to the fact that women are more prone to seek medical attention. After reviewing a few articles online, research has proven that women do actually feel more pain then men for other reasons. In one article regarding plastic surgery they found that, "women averaged 34 nerve fibers per square of facial skin while men only averaged 17 nerve fibers." Since women have more nerve receptors then men do, this contributes to the difference in pain threshold. Another contributing factor was found that women tend to focus more on emotional aspects of pain while men fixate on sensory aspects. When statistically compared to men, women are diagnosed with more chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. Ross D. Hauser discusses this in his video, also suggesting men have higher muscle mass which is another contribution to the difference.


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