American men account for more drug overdose death cases compared to women, a recent study has found.
The study led by scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Latest York City and the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found men were two to thrice more more likely to die of a drug overdose than women.
Drugs like opioids, fentanyl, and heroin were found to have been involved within the cases of the deaths. Nonetheless, it’s yet to be determined whether aspects like misuse or abuse impacted the increasing figures of mortality.
“Though men and girls are being exposed to the trendy, fentanyl-contaminated drug supply, something is leading men to die at significantly higher rates. It could be that men use drugs more often or in greater doses, which could increase their risk of death, or there could also be protective aspects amongst women that reduce their risk of death in comparison with men,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, the study’s co-author and director of NIDA, in a news release.
“Understanding the biological, behavioral, and social aspects that impact drug use and our bodies’ responses is critical to developing tailored tools to guard people from fatal overdose and other harms of drug use,” Volkow added within the NIDA news release.
As a part of the study, researchers analyzed details about drug overdose deaths amongst individuals aged 15 to 74, referencing data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemiologic Research platform. Alongside this, the researchers also used data from the annual National Surveys on Drug Use and Health to estimate and control for rates of drug misuse in men in comparison with women.
The researchers then studied drug overdose deaths. They examined heroin, stimulants, and cocaine. Amongst every 100,000 people, around 5.5 men and a pair of women died from a heroin overdose. For stimulants, about 13 men and 5.6 women out of each 100,000 people died from overdosing. Concerning cocaine, roughly 10.6 men and 4.2 women out of each 100,000 people died from overdosing.
Data by 10-year age groups also showed that men had greater rates of death than women, with synthetic opioids being a key catalyst.
The study authors proposed that the outcomes may be explained by a combination of things. These include the likelihood that men could also be more biologically vulnerable to the harmful effects of medication, in addition to differences in how they take drugs, which could involve riskier behaviors. Moreover, social and gender-related aspects could also contribute to those findings.
“These data emphasize the importance of taking a look at the differences between men and girls in a multilayered way,” lead study writer Eduardo Butelman, an assistant professor of psychiatry on the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told UPI. “Moving forward, it’s going to be necessary for researchers to proceed to analyze how biology, social aspects and behaviors intersect with sex and gender aspects, and the way all of those can impact addictive drug misuse and overdose deaths.”
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Published by Medicaldaily.com