MamasHealth.com Home Women's Health Adenomyosis Atrophic vaginitis Bartholin's abscess Cervical dysplasia Cervical polyps Cervictis Depo provera Domestic violence Endometrial hyperplasia Endometrial polyps Endometriosis Escape an attacker Folic acid Finding time for sex Hormone therapy Alternatives How to be a better mom HPV scare Important health tests Labial reduction surgery Menorrhagia Menopause Menstrual cramps Midlife checklist Mittelschmerz Moms need friends too Ovarian cysts Painful sex Pelvic exams PID PMS Polycystic ovarian Preeclampsia Pregnancy Salpingitis Toxic shock syndrome 1 Toxic shock syndrome 2 Urinary incontinence Urinary tract infection Uterine bleeding Uterine fibroids Vaginal cysts Vaginal dryness Vaginal rejuvenation Vaginal warts Vaginismus Vaginitis Vulvar dystrophy Vulvitis Vulvodynia Women & calcium Women & medicine Women & heart Disease Yeast infections Links Email Mama Tips to get him in the mood Why women should care about prostate cancer Donating your eggs Help for rape victims Stay at home moms Women and calcium 9 things women should know about men Shy girls guide to flirting	Women and Medication Women react to medications differently than men. For decades, the medical profession assumed that women were like 'small men'. We now know that women are not like small men. Women are very different from men, especially when it comes to Medicine. Some of the common ways men and women are different are listed below. Women metabolize prescription drugs differently. Certain medications like Erythromycin and Imitrex can disrupt a women's heart rhythm and if used for a long term, cause heart problems. Some of the reasons why women metabolize prescription drugs differently are: hormone levels, amount of body fat, and slower digestive systems. Hormone levels can reduce or boost the amount of medicine circulating in the blood system. This can either increase or decrease the dosage needed. Women have more body fat than men. Drugs that collect in fatty tissue aren't metabolized as quickly so less drugs are needed. Women's digestive systems are slower than men. Slow digestive systems can cause medicines like painkillers to slowly pass through the digestive tract. This causes more medicine to be absorbed and less medicine is needed. Pain is more acute. Scientific evidence suggests that women feel pain more intensely, more often and throughout more of their body than men. Lung cancer and smoking are deadlier. Women who smoke are one and a half times more likely than male smokers to develop lung cancer. Depression rates are higher. Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from clinical depression. Women have more trouble sleeping. Women suffer from insomnia and feel tired during the day more often than men. Women are at an increased risk of developing potentially fatal irregular heartbeats (also called arrhythmias) in response to taking certain medications than men.
	Hot Topics: Domestic Violence: A pre-existing condition? Serena: The wanna be vegetarian Personal Story: How I recovered from my Eating Disorder Mama wants to help: Food Bank programs and shelter assistance Lucy Goes Green: Talk dirty to me How to avoid Swine Flu What no one will tell you about tummy tuck surgery Mama's favorite item of the week: Trees for the Future Foods for weight loss Win a Gift Bag filled with Goodies from Stonyfield
	Information obtained from MamasHealth.com™ should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or attention by a qualified practitioner, nor should it be inferred as such. Always check with your doctor if you have any questions or concerns about a specific condition. Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms of Use. Contact us: PO Box 2170, Pasadena, CA 91102-2170 ©2000 - 2009 MamasHealth, Inc.™. All rights reserved